UC-NRLF 


MARRIAGE  AND  DIVORCE 


MARRIAGE  AND  DIVORCE 


BY 


FELIX  ADLER 

AUTHOR  o»  "Tuc  WOULD  Omaia  AMD  Ira  MKAXIHO" 


NEW  YORK  AND  LONDON 

D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY 
1915 


-13"* 


COPTRIQUT,  1915,  BT 

D.  APPLETON  AND   COMPANY 

COPYRIGHT,  1905,  BT 
McCLURE,  PHILLIPS  &  CO. 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


PREFACE 

THE  three  addresses  which  comprise  this  little 
volume  were  spoken  by  Professor  Adler  before 
the  Society  for  Ethical  Culture  of  New  York 
City,  and  were  reported  stenographically. 
The  reports  have  been  edited  with  a  view  only 
to  eliminate  some  of  the  distinctively  platform 
features  of  speech,  while  preserving  the  thought 
us  expressed  in  the  spoken  addresses. 


324924 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.     MARRIAGE     ......       3 

II.     DIVORCE 31 

III.     THE    ILLUSIONS    AND    THE    IDEAL    OP 

MARRIAGE 63 


MARRIAGE 


MARRIAGE 

IN  the  marriage  customs  of  all  nations  there  is  a 
certain  idral  i-k-inent.  In  the  ancient  world  sacri- 
fii vs  were  offered  to  the  gods;  there  were  torch- 
light processions,  and  sometimes,  as  if  to  indicate 
the  royal  state  of  the  nuptial  pair,  the  bride  and 
groom  were  led  under  a  canopy,  like  that  which  is 
raised  above  the  heads  of  sovereigns  —  a  custom 
which  still  is  perpetuated  among  the  orthodox 
Jews.  Even  in  our  own  prosaic  and  practical  age, 
poetry  and  symbolism  have  not  entirely  forsaken 
the  marriage  altar.  Those  who  tolerate  ceremony 
on  no  other  occasion,  crave  it  then.  There  is  the  bell 
with  its  peal  and  appeal,  the  wedding-music  com- 
posed by  some  of  the  greatest  masters,  and,  above 
all,  —  the  center  of  this  simple  pageantry,  —  the 
bride  herself,  enveloped  in  white  veil  and  robe,  a 
wreath  upon  her  brow,  advancing,  leaning  on 
[3] 


MAR3IAG2    AND     DIVORCE 

her  father's  arm :  a  beautiful,  touching  picture  in 
which  the  ideal  of  pure  virginity  and  of  the  mother- 
hood that  is  to  be,  are  joined  in  holy  unison !  And 
in  the  great  majority  of  cases  the  life  that  follows 
is  worthy  of  the  splendor  of  such  initiation;  this 
bride  and  groom  will  probably  keep  their  troth  to 
each  other,  and  the  flame  kindled  at  the  altar  will 
burn  steadily  in  after-years. 

The  sweeping  assertion  sometimes  made,  that 
modern  marriage  is  a  failure,  is  a  grotesque  exag- 
geration. The  pathological  phenomena  which 
give  color  to  this  view,  proclaim  themselves 
from  the  house-tops,  and  shriek  in  public  print. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  normal,  happy  mar- 
riages do  not  proclaim  themselves,  but  rather 
shun  publicity,  and  bring  their  homage  to 
the  Penates  in  the  guarded  precincts  of  sacred 
privacy.  Fortunately,  the  great  majority  of  mar- 
riages, though  they  be  not  perfect,  as  nothing  hu- 
man is  perfect,  are,  doubtless,  on  the  whole,  the 
brightest  aspect  of  the  life  of  the  human  race. 

And  yet  one  must  not  close  his  eyes  to  the  fact 
that  a  change  is  coming  over  society  in  its  attitude 
toward  the  marriage  state,  a  change  which  is 
[4] 


MARRIAGE 

alarming  as  a  presage  of  things  never  before 
known.  The  number  of  divorces  is  increasing 
rapidly.  Mr.  Carroll  D.  Wright,  of  the  Hurra u 
of  Labor  in  Washington,  some  time  ago  pub- 
lished statistics  to  the  effect  that  in  a  period  of 
twenty  years  in  the  United  States,  about  970,000 
men  and  women,  nearly  a  million  persons,  peti- 
tioned the  courts  for  divorce,  and  of  this  number, 
divorce  was  actually  granted  to  more  than  650,000. 
Consider  the  number  of  children  in  each  case, 
and  one  may  realize  that  the  number  of  persons 
affected  by  such  a  rupture  of  the  marriage  state 
was  exceedingly  large.  Nor  is  this  movement 
confined  to  the  United  States.  It  is  found  in 
every  civilized  country  of  the  world. 

Again,  there  is  an  indication  of  this  new  spirit  in 
a  certain  shameless  flouting  of  decent  propriety, 
noticeable  of  late  in  a  number  of  divorce  cases. 
The  newspapers  mentioned  not  long  ago,  the 
case  of  one  person,  the  daughter  of  a  citizen  of 
Chicago,  who  had  just  received  from  the  courts  her 
fifth  divorce.  She  was  married  at  sixteen:  shortly 
after  she  was  divorced  from  her  husband,  then  re- 
married to  him,  and  was  again  divorced  from  him. 
[5] 


MARRIAGE     AND     DIVORCE 

She  then  married  a  second  husband,  and  was  di- 
vorced from  him,  in  order  to  remarry  her  first 
husband,  from  whom  she  was  again  divorced,  then 
she  married  her  third  husband,  from  whom  she 
has  just  been  set  free.  And  worse  than  this  was 
the  case  mentioned  a  year  ago,  of  a  divorce 
consummated  in  a  court  in  Newport,  which  was 
immediately  followed  by  remarriage  of  one  of 
the  divorced  parties,  the  carriage  waiting  at  the 
door,  the  same  judge  who  pronounced  the  divorce 
having  no  better  sense  of  judicial  dignity  and 
propriety,  than  to  officiate  at  the  subsequent 
marriage. 

If  these  irregularities  could  be  attributed  to  the 
depravity  of  the  persons  concerned,  the  uninviting 
subject  might  be  dismissed  with  the  comment  that 
here,  as  in  the  case  of  crimes  against  life  and 
property,  we  must  more  emphatically  bring  home 
the  prescriptions  of  the  moral  law,  as  affecting 
marriage,  to  persons  whose  conscience  is  below 
the  average.  But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  lax  views 
on  the  subject  of  the  marriage  relation  are  very 
widely  entertained,  even  by  persons  who  do  not  put 
them  into  practice;  and  this  is,  perhaps,  the  most 
[6] 


MARRIAGE 

ominous  feature  of  tin*  unwelcome  change.  In 
drawing-rooms  and  clubs  one  hears  men  and  wo- 
men of  unimpeachable  behavior  playing  with 
these  topics  as  with  edged  tools.  A  celebrated 
novelist  proposes  that  marriage  should  be  con- 
tracted for  ten  years  only,  and  nearly  everybody 
finds  it  very  interesting  to  discuss  this  proposition  of 
experimental  marriages.  There  is  no  protest  or  re- 
vulsion, no  general  consensus  that  something  im- 
proper, even  impossible,  has  been  suggested;  the 
proposition  is  considered  and  debated.  Some  ladies 
rather  plume  themselves  upon  their  radicalism  and 
freedom  from  prejudice  in  discussing  all  these  novel 
propositions.  Literature  is  full  of  the  same  poison. 
One  finds  it  in  Ibsen ;  Thomas  Hardy  reeks  with  it. 
The  fact  is,  there  is  an  undercurrent  at  work  in 
modern  society  which  is  sapping  the  old  time 
family  ideal.  Everybody  is  more  or  less  conscious 
of  the  fact  that  a  change  is  coming  and  is  bound  to 
come,  and  yet  there  is  a  terrible  confusion  as  to  the 
direction  in  which  we  ought  to  look  for  help. 

There  have  been  many  views  of  marriage  and  of 
the  family  into  the  details  of  which  we  cannot  here 
enter.  There  was  the  primitive  economy  in  which 
[7] 


MARRIAGE     AND     DIVORCE 

the  woman  was  the  head  of  the  family,  and  descent 
was  traced  to  her;  that  was  the  matriarchal 
family.  There  have  been  various  other  forms  of 
the  family,  which  might  profitably  be  discussed ;  but 
there  is  only  one  type  of  the  family  that  I  wish  to 
dwell  upon,  because  it  will  serve  as  a  background 
for  the  discussion  of  present  conditions,  and  a 
commentary  on  the  real  meaning  of  those  dis- 
integrating forces  which  are  at  work  in  present 
society:  that  is  the  type  of  the  ancient  and  the 
mediaeval  family,  in  which  marriage  is  entirely 
subordinate  to  family  interests.  In  such  a  mar- 
riage the  question  whether  a  man  and  a  woman  love 
one  another  is  a  secondary  question,  for  the  hus- 
band and  wife  are  not  the  chief  parties  con- 
cerned: the  real  interest  in  the  matter  is  social. 
The  question  is  not,  whether  one's  husband  or 
wife  answers  to  the  expectations  of  the  heart,  or 
corresponds  to  one's  ideals,  but  whether  the  union 
is  for  the  good  of  the  family.  This  view  is  in- 
terestingly illustrated  in  Japan,  for  instance, 
where  a  woman,  when  she  marries,  is  adopted  into 
the  family  of  her  husband,  and  there  is  laid  upon 
her  the  duty  of  filial  devotion  in  that  family,  es- 
[8] 


MARRIAGE 

pecially  to  the  senior  members  of  it.  She  is  even 
warned  against  any  too  great  attachment  to  her  hus- 
band. It  is  considered  good  ground  fnr  divorce  in 
old  Japan  if  a  man  loves  his  \\itV  too  much,  or  if  a 
woman  loves  her  husband  too  much.  This  is  not  a 
jest  but  a  fact.  The  divorce  is  pronounced  by  the 
elders  of  the  family,  without  consulting  the  hus- 
band and  wife,  on  the  ground  that  their  particular 
fondness  for  one  another  interferes  with  the  per- 
formance of  their  duties  to  the  whole  family. 

But  we  do  not  need  to  go  to  Japan  for  illustra- 
tions. In  the  case  of  royal  marriages  to-day,  there 
is  the  same  standard  of  judgment.  Very  rarely  are 
princes  allowed  to  contract  alliances  in  accordance 
with  their  choice.  A  princely  alliance  is  an  affair 
of  state ;  it  is  for  the  good  of  the  dynasty,  and  the 
affections  of  princes  and  princesses  must  wait 
upon  the  convenience  of  cabinets. 

Now  in  mediaeval  times,  it  must  be  remembered, 
every  family  was  a  kind  of  dynasty,  and  marriage 
was  for  the  sake  of  perpetuating  that  family.  The 
Percys  and  the  Howards  had  the  same  feeling 
about  their  family  as  the  Hohenzollerns  and  the 
Hapsburgs.  And  even  lower  down,  among  the 

[9] 


MARRIAGE     AND     DIVORCE 

weavers,  artisans,  and  stone-masons,  there  was  the 
same  feeling.  That  idea  still  continues  in  the 
mariage  de  convenance,  the  idea  that  two 
families  marry,  or,  if  you  please,  two  properties 
unite.  A  young  girl  is  kept  in  the  convent  in 
France  that  she  may  be  out  of  the  world,  and 
may  not  make  the  acquaintance  of  men,  and  form 
attachments  which  might  prove  an  insuperable  ob- 
stacle to  her  accepting  the  stranger-husband  whom 
her  family  has  provided  or  shall  provide  for 
her. 

This  explains  also  the  masculine  predominance 
in  the  old-time  marriage.  In  the  very  beginning  it 
was  not  so;  descent  was  traced  in  the  female 
line.  But  in  the  mediaeval  family,  and  even  in  the 
ancient  Greek  and  Hebrew  family,  the  masculine 
element  dominated  in  marriage.  This  masculine 
predominance  was  not  due  to  the  self-assertiveness 
of  men,  as  our  modern  innovators  sometimes  rep- 
resent it,  but  was  inevitable  in  a  system  in  which 
the  family  loomed  so  large.  The  family  over- 
shadowed the  marriage.  Because  the  man  was  the 
representative  of  the  family,  and  because  the 
property  was  vested  in  him  —  not  to  do  with  it  as  he 
[10] 


M  A  H  H  I  A  G  E 

liked,  hut  to  hand  it  on  to  his  offspring —  lie  was 
predominant  in  marriage.  He  himself  was  only  a 
niNcv,aeustodian,orif,asinthecaseofthe\veavers 
and  stone-masons,  he  did  not  represent  properly, 
he  yet  had  a  certain  preferential  right  to  the  privi- 
leges of  the  guild,  he  and  his  sons  after  him.  The 
mediaeval  family  had  existed  for  hundreds  of  yea  n 
perhaps,  and  the  family  property  had  been  handed 
down  from  father  to  son,  and  again  from  son  to  son. 
In  like  manner  the  privileges  of  artisans  and  trades- 
men had  been  vested  in  that  family  for  years.  What, 
then,  did  marriage  mean  ?  It  meant  that  two 
young  persons  came  and  took  their  place  in  this 
line  of  generations,  and  that  they  undertook  the 
duty  of  providing  an  heir  for  this  family,  and  of 
seeing  to  it  that  this  family  tradition  should  be 
duly  maintained  and  handed  on  to  another  age. 
That  is  the  reason  why  the  happiness  of  the  young 
man  and  the  young  woman  was  deemed  so  merely 
incidental  and  secondary  a  matter  when  compared 
with  the  interests  of  the  family. 

Now  the  old  view  of  the  family,  which  still  pre- 
vails in  orthodox  circles,  the  view  which  the  Epis«  >- 
pal  Church  and  the  Methodist  Church  are  trying 


MARRIAGE     AND     DIVORCE 

to  save,  and  to  which  conservative  people  are 
harking  back,  is  doomed.  It  is  a  conception 
of  the  significance  of  the  family  which  has 
gone. 

In  one  sense  the  change  is  a  good  sign;  in  an- 
other sense  it  is  most  evil.  It  is  a  good  sign  because 
the  modern  protest  means  that  the  young  people 
are  asserting  that  their  affections  are  not  of  second- 
ary interest,  that  they  will  not  be  tyrannized  over  by 
this  monster  of  family  interest,  family  property, 
dynastic  interest,  or  whatever  it  is  called,  that  has 
lived  for  generations,  and  seeks  to  live  for  other 
generations,  sacrificing  to  its  pride  and  ambitions 
the  life  and  the  happiness  of  individuals.  Our  young 
people  say,  No!  We  live  to-day!  We  have  rights 
that  must  be  considered,  and  in  the  choice  of  a 
partner,  for  us  the  question  of  the  heart's  satis- 
faction, the  question  of  love,  of  mutual  attraction, 
is  not  to  be  set  aside !  In  so  far,  the  change  is  good, 
and  we  sympathize  with  it  heartily. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  there  is  no  mistaking  the 

fact  that  there  is  an  element  of  impiety  in  it  all. 

While  it  is  true  that  the  interest  of  the  man  and  the 

woman,  the  nuptial  pair,  ought  to  be  considered, 

[12] 


MARRIAGE 

that  they  have  rights  which  must  not  be  ignored, 
yet  in  reaction  against  the  old  view  there  is  the 
pretension  that  nothing  is  now  to  he  considered  ex- 
cept the  happiness  of  m;idnme  and  monsieur.  And 
the  idea  that  marriage  has  a  purpose  outside  of  the 
immediate  happiness  of  the  man  and  woman  con- 
cerned, that  society  has  an  interest  at  stake,  that 
there  is  a  tremendous  social  need  which  depends 
upon  the  right  consummation  of  marriages,  —  that 
idea  is  threatening  to  fall  away  entirely.  The  old 
view  was  tyrannical;  it  suppressed  individuals  and 
their  righteous  claims.  The  modern  view,  however, 
as  it  is  preached  for  example,  in  Ibsen's  Nora,  is 
anarchical  and  mad ;  it  permits  a  man  and  woman 
to  go  to  the  marriage  altar  oblivious  of  the  very  I 
object  for  which  marriage  is  instituted,  assuming  / 
that  is  a  delighful  contrivance  for  making  their  ( 
hearts  warm,  and  giving  them  the  pleasure  of 
each  other's  comfort  and  society.  I  venture  to  say 
that,  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten,  even  fine  and  lovely 
people  will  enter  into  marriage  with  never  a  thought 
beyond  that  of  their  own  happiness.  They  for- 
get that  they  are  servants,  that  there  are  great  so- 
cial  ends  to  which  they  must  bow ;  and  the  fact  that 
[13] 


MARRIAGE     AND     DIVORCE 

these  ends  are  lost  sight  of  is  the  chief  explanation 
of  the  increase  of  the  evil  of  divorce. 

The  family,  which  exists  from  generation  to 
generation,  is  in  our  eyes  no  more  imposing.  I 
doubt  whether  among  the  children  of  to-day 
there  are  very  many  who  have  any  real  con- 
ception of  their  grandfathers  and  grandmothers. 
Our  connection  with  the  past  is  loosening.  In  the 
family  of  the  olden  time  nothing  was  more  real  than 
the  grandfather,  and  even  the  grandfather's  grand- 
father. The  history  of  the  family  was  imparted  to 
the  young ;  they  read  genealogical  books ;  they  were 
well  informed  about  every  important  detail  in  the 
life  of  their  ancestors.  But  children  nowadays  know 
very  little  about  their  ancestors,  therefore  our 
relations  to  the  past  are  becoming  more  and  more 
attenuated.  Young  people  look  to  the  future  much 
more  than  to  the  past,  —  that  cannot  be  helped. 

My  criticism  of  the  older  view  of  marriage  then 
is,  that  the  conception  of  supereminent  and  over- 
shadowing family  interest,  as  it  expressed  itself  in 
property  and  privileges,  was  too  narrow  and 
tyrannical.  It  sacrificed  young  love  to  that  ogre, 
the  family. 

[14] 


MARRIAGE 

Hut,  on  the  other  hand.  I  very  earnestly  maintain 
that  the  great  fault  with  the  modern  con- 
ception of  marriage  is,  that  it  has  gone  to  the 
other  extreme,  K»in«j  si<rht  of  the  social  end  al- 
together, and  over-emphasizing  the  individual 
v-laim  to  happiness. 

What  we  must  attempt,  therefore,  is:  first,  a 
broader  statement  of  the  social  end  of  marriage: 
and  second,  a  definition  of  love  which  shall  be  con- 
sistent with  devotion  to  that  end.  The  social  end 
of  marriage  is  not  merely  to  minister  to  family 
pride,  to  keep  the  estate  or  the  privileges  of  the 
Percys  or  the  Howards  or  the  Hohenzollerns  in- 
tact. The  social  end  of  marriage  is  to  perpetuate 
the  physical  and  spiritual  existence  of  the  human 
race,  and  to  enhance  and  improve  it.  Let  us  never 
leave  that  out  of  sight!  Let  there  be  no  absurd 
prudishness  to  prevent  us  from  realizing  that  there 
is  this  social  purpose  in  marriage.  It  is  a  strange 
and  touching  thought  that  the  best  thing  in  the 
world  is  always  in  danger  of  extinction  —  life ! 

Inorganic  matter,  stones,  earth,  mountains,  hills, 
the  sea,  remain  as  they  were ;  they  endure  for  hun- 
dreds of  thousands  of  years.  But  life,  which  in  hu- 
[15] 


MARRIAGE     AND     DIVORCE 

man  form  expresses  itseif  in  terms  of  thinking, 
feeling,  and  willing,  is  ever  born  anew,  and  would 
perish  utterly  were  it  not  renewed.  Marriage  is  an 
institution  for  saving  life  —  the  best  thing  in  the 
world,  for  saving  the  most  delicate  and  precious 
thing,  mentality;  and  not  only  for  saving  it,  but  for 
improving  and  refining  it  with  every  renewal.  Of 
course,  it  is  not  true  that  all  children  are  improve- 
ments on  their  parents;  sometimes  a  relapse  and 
a  reversion  to  a  lower  type  is  seen  in  children. 
But  at  any  rate  improvement  is  always  possible, 
because  it  is  possible  for  the  parent  to  overcome,  at 
least  to  some  extent,  that  backward  strain,  and  to 
make  the  life  as  it  appears  in  his  child  better  than 
it  would  otherwise  have  been;  better  relatively,  if 
not  absolutely.  At  all  events,  the  great  current  of 
evolution  sweeps  through  us;  and  the  thing  in  all 
this  universe  of  suns  and  stars  that  is  most  worth 
preserving,  increasing,  and  enhancing  —  life,  men- 
tality —  this  it  is  which  renews  itself  through 
husband  and  wife. 

How  absurd,  then,  to  set  up  personal  happiness 
as  the  goal !  The  principal  thing  is  that  marriage 
shall  subserve  a  vast  and  wonderful  social  end ;  for 
[16] 


M  A  H  U  I  A  Q  E 

while  the  trees  last,  and  the  hills  and  the  mountains 
remain  just  as  they  are,  the  greatest  thinir  in  the 
world,  human  life,  persists  only  in  so  far  a>  it  is 
renewed,  and  renewal  mcan^  a  chance  of  improve- 
ment. And  so,  in  the  sacred  rites  of  marriage  tin- 
great  soul  of  the  world  comes  home  to  you  and 
pleads  with  you  to  give  it  incarnation.  That  is  the 
social  end  of  marriage,  and  parents  must  stay  to- 
gether if  they  are  to  accomplish  it  normally.  The 
idea  that  marriage  should  cease  when  love  ceases 
is  a  doctrine  abhorrent  and  blasphemous,  because 
it  forbids  the  performance  of  this  supreme  duty  of 
maintaining  and  enhancing  the  spiritual  life  of 
the  world.  And  your  child  stands  to  you  for  hu- 
manity; if  you  say,  "this  is  my  child,  my  own,  my 
beloved",  you  suffer  from  a  limited,  restricted 
vision.  You  and  I  shall  pass  like  a  cloud ; 
but  the  child  will  live,  and  perhaps  other 
children  —  humanity  —  will  live  through  him. 
One  cannot  be  faithful  to  the  claims  of  humanity, 
unless  he  nurtures  that  child  through  all  the  years 
of  its  prolonged  infancy  and  adolescence,  so  long 
as  it  needs  counsel  and  guidance. 
The  only  reason  that  propositions  like  Mr. 
[17] 


MARRIAGE     AND     DIVORCE 

George  Meredith's  are  listened  to,  and  that  men 
who  make  them  are  not  met  with  derision  and  con- 
tempt, is  that  we  have  become  to  such  an  extent 
individualists,  and  feed  our  individualism  so  con- 
stantly, that  we  think  of  marriage,  in  reaction 
against  the  old  view  of  the  family,  simply  as  an 
individual  affair,  and  forget  its  vast  social  purpose. 

Our  second  task  in  the  reconstruction  of  a  safe 
and  sane  view  of  marriage  is  to  find  a  definition  of 
love  which  is  consistent  with  devotion  to  the  social 
end  thus  defined. 

There  is  no  word  in  the  human  language  more 
beautiful  or  more  sacred  than  the  word  "  love " ; 
and  there  is  none  which  is  used  with  more 
vagueness  of  connotation,  or  more  profanely,  to 
denote  the  very  thing  that  every  pure  and  loving 
heart  would  most  abhor.  In  the  first  place  love, 
if  it  is  to  be  conducive  to  the  social  end,  must  not 
be  what  is  called  "  romantic  ".  A  great  deal  of  the 
disappointment  in  marriage  may  be  attributed  to 
false  expectations  founded  upon  the  romantic  idea 
of  love,  the  false  idealization  of  the  beloved  per- 
son. To  attribute  perfection  to  the  object  of  love  is 
characteristic  of  the  romantic  idea.  A  romantic  girl 
[18] 


MARRIAGE 

says,  "My  love  is  the  type  of  all  chivalry;  he  is 
endowed  with  all  noble  qualities;  there  is  no  fault 
in  him."  And  the  romantic  lover  s.-jvs  of  his 
maiden,  "She  is  a  goddess.  I  worship  the  ground 
on  which  she  treads."  The  idea  of  romantic  love 
is  the  excessive  magnifying  of  persons,  and  it  is 
inspired  by  the  desire  of  each  to  enjoy  the  per- 
fection of  the  other. 

It  may  be  asked:  But  why  should  not  this  be 
accounted  an  amiable  and  venial  fault,  if  fault  it 
be  ?  Why  should  we  not,  in  the  period  of  youth, 
indulge  ourselves  in  delusions  and  dreams  ?  Why 
should  we  not  invest  one  another  with  this  starry 
mantle?  The  answer  is:  Because  it  is  false;  and 
falsehood,  especially  in  the  fundamental  relations 
of  life,  is  sure  to  exact  its  penalties  and  to  bring 
reaction  in  after  years.  There  are  some  persons, 
especially  women,  who  have  the  art  of  obstinately 
adhering  to  their  illusions  in  defiance  of  their  bet- 
ter knowledge.  But  in  general  when  it  appears  that 
the  idol  has  feet  of  clay,  then  one  of  two  things  must 
happen:  either  the  marriage  continues  intact  while 
love  is  dead,  supported  by  the  force  of  custom  or 
by  fear  of  exposure,  and  becomes  a  sort  of  lack- 
[19] 


MARRIAGE     AND     DIVORCE 

lustre  fellowship,  a  weary  chain  that  is  dragged 
to  the  end  with  what  patience  one  can  command; 
or  else,  in  bolder  and  more  reckless  natures,  the 
desire  to  meet  the  embodiment  of  one's  ideal 
somewhere,  persists,  and  the  attempt  is  made  to 
find  outside  of  marriage,  in  unwholesome  and 
illicit  ways,  the  satisfaction  which  the  marriage 
relation  fails  to  bring.  For  these  reasons  romantic 
love  cannot  be  the  true  love. 

Again,  there  should  be  warning  against  an 
idea  which  is  very  common  at  present,  under  the 
influence  of  the  college  education  of  girls  and 
of  the  emancipation  of  woman,  —  the  idea  that  in 
the  relation  between  the  sexes,  every  attempt 
should  be  made  to  ignore  sex  difference,  and  that 
men  and  women  should  meet  just  as  men  meet 
with  men,  on  the  basis  of  comradeship.  This  idea 
I  believe  is,  like  that  of  romantic  love,  a  pernic- 
ious one.  In  the  first  place,  if  it  is  encouraged 
before  marriage,  it  is  likely  to  conduce  to  trage- 
dies. Nature  may  be  ignored,  but  cannot  after  all 
be  annulled.  The  attraction  between  the  opposite 
sexes  is  different  from  that  between  members  of 
the  same  sex,  and  so  it  often  happens  that 
[20] 


MARRIAGE 

between  those  who  have  afTo-tcd  to  deal  with 
one  another  simply  as  good  comrades  there 
suddenly  comes  an  inrush  of  passion  for  which 
they  were  not  prepared,  and  which  is  all  the  more 
violent  because  they  were  not  on  their  guard.  And 
if  it  be  encouraged  after  marriage,  it  leads  to  still 
worse  consequences  because  the  idea*  of  mm- 
comradeship  is  obnoxious  and  antagonistic  to  the 
idea  of  marriage.  Such  a  thing  as  a  permanent 
comradeship  cannot  be  imposed.  In  the  very  nature 
of  comradeship  is'implied  the  possibility  of  separa- 
tion. There  is  no  mere  comrade  to  whom  I  feel 
myself  so  pledged  as  to  be  inseparably  connected 
with  him.  Comradeship  depends  on  free  choice,  and 
free  choice  can  be  annulled.  I  may  be  the  comrade 
of  some  one  in  matters  of  business,  then  we  are 
held  together  so  long  as  our  business  interests  com- 
bine us.  I  may  be  his  comrade  in  some  literary  or 
scientific  pursuit.  I  may  be  his  comrade  on  a  jour- 
ney; and  at  the  end  of  the  journey,  we  may  shake 
hands  and  part  forever.  There  is  nothing  perma- 
nent in  the  idea  of  comradeship.  But  the  idea  of 
marriage  is  different.  He  who  enters  into  marriage 
gives  up  a  part  of  his  liberty.  Marriage  is  not  cama- 
[21] 


MARRIAGE     AND     DIVORCE 

a  raderie.  The  very  essence  of  it  is  that  it  is  a  per- 
vr  manent  bond.  Sex  attraction  exists  in  the  lower 
animal  world ;  in  a  sense,  it  is  the  basest  and  most 
repulsive  instinct  which  we  know.  How  does  it 
happen,  then,  in  the  human  world,  that  it  is  not 
only  dignified  and  exalted,  but  even  transformed 
into  its  opposite,  so  that  what  on  the  animal  level 
is  most  despicable,  becomes  most  honorable  and 
most  pure  ?  Is  it  not  just  the  permanence  of  the 
marriage  relation  that  makes  the  difference  ?  Is  it 
not  because  among  human  beings,  it  is  a  perma- 
nent and  indissoluble  bond  ?  Is  it  not  because  of 
that  interweaving  of  mind  and  heart  which  is  only 
possible  on  the  basis  of  permanence  ? 

I  have  often  said  that  marriage  seems  to  me  to 
be  the  epitome  of  all  other  fine  relations.  There  is 
a  certain  element  of  brotherliness  in  it  as  between 
the  married  pair;  there  is  a  certain  fatherly  atti- 
tude; there  is  a  certain  motherly  brooding  on  the 
part  of  the  wife  over  her  husband ;  there  is  friend- 
ship, and  an  element  of  comradeship;  and  there  is 
always  something  infinitely  more.  What  is  that 
something  infinitely  more?  It  is  something  pres- 
ent in  no  other  human  relation.  It  is  just  the  feel- 
[22] 


MARRIAGE 

ing  that,  as  between  husband  and  wife,  there 
shall  be  a  total  blending  of  mind  with  mind 
and  heart  with  heart;  that  they  shall  touch  not 
merely  at  one  point,  as  friends  or  companions  do, 
but  that  they  shall  touch  at  all  points;  that  thcycan- 
1  ^  not  endure  separation.  Emerson  said  he  could  well 
afford  to  have  his  friend,  Carlyle,  live  on  the  other 
side  of  the  water —  he  did  not  need  his  presence; 
but  true  husband  and  wife  cannot  live  one  on  this 
side  of  the  water  and  the  other  on  the  other  side. 
They  are  moved  to  have  all  things  in  common,  to 
live  under  the  same  roof,  to  break  bread  together 
day  by  day,  to  pass  through  the  vicissitudes  of 
life  together,  to  suffer  with  each  other,  to  rejoice 
together,  to  con  life's  lessons  together;  to  wish  to 
confer  perpetual  benefit  each  on  the  other.  They 
are  not  romantic  enthusiasts,  neither  are  they 
without  the  poetic  rapture  in  each  other's  rela- 
tion. The  true  love  of  marriage  differs  from 
romantic  love  in  this,  that  the  romantic  lover  sees 
perfection  contrary  to  the  facts,  and  attributes  a 
present  perfection  to  the  other;  the  real  lover  is  he 
who  sees  a  certain  excellence,  a  certain  charm  — 
without  the  attraction  of  that  there  would  be  no 
[23] 


MARRIAGE     AND     DIVORCE 

approach  —  but  beyond  that,  sees  the  possibility  of 
greater  excellence  and  perfection  which  is  not 
yet,  but  which  shall  be  developed  through  mutual 
help. 

Finally,  there  is  one  other  word  to  say:  The 
ethical  doctrine  as  I  conceive  it  is  based  entirely 
upon  the  idea  that  the  true  ethical  relationship  is 
that  which  leads  to  the  calling  forth  of  spiritual 
possibilities,  and  this  general  doctrine  I  have  ap- 
plied to  the  subject  of  marriage.  A  complementary 
doctrine  in  my  ethical  thought,  equally  dear  and  im- 
portant, is  that  we  work  out  what  is  best  in  us,  not 
through  the  deliberate  attempt  to  cultivate  our 
own  nature,  but  in  the  endeavor  to  call  out  what 
is  best  in  others.  This  also  finds  its  illustration  in 
the  marriage  relation,  (and  here  is  the  reconciliation 
of  the  social  end  and  the  individual  end  of  marriage) 
for  there  is  no  anvil  upon  which  a  man  and  woman 
can  beat  out  their  spiritual  perfection  to  be  com- 
pared with  the  task  of  the  education  of  their  chil- 
dren. In  marriage  there  are  three  parties:  the  man, 
the  woman,  and  that  life  which  is  their  life  com- 
bined. One  cannot  think  of  marriage  without  the 
children.  And  it  is  in  relation  to  the  children  that 
[24] 


MARRIAGE 

the  task  of  realizing  the  excellence  which  has  not 
yet  appeared,  is  host  achieved.  The  children,  for 
instance,  if  they  are  to  be  well  brought  up,  and 
well  guided,  must   reverence   their  parents.   The 
quality  of  reverence  is  indispensable.  But  if  they\ 
are  to  reverence  them,  then  parents  must  become  I 
worthy  of  their  reverence;   and  so  this  need   of  \ 
the  children  is  the  challenge  which  helps,  and  / 
spurs  on  the  parent  to  become  worthy  of  reirer-    j 
ence.  Our  children  come  to  us  for  knowledge.  If 
we  are  to  impart  that  knowledge  we  must  have 
it;  we  cannot  afford  to  be  idlers  and  triflers.  Of 
course,  we  cannot  give  them  all  the  instruction 
they  require.  We  send  them  to  schools  or  engage 
tutors  for  them;   but  we  must  give  them  at  least 
the  afflatus  of  knowledge.  Theymustjiot  look 
upon  us  as  ignorant  persons.  They  must  realize 
that  in  some  field  we  too  are  competent.     They 
must  get  the  atmosphere  of  superior  experience 
and  knowledge  from  us.      Furthermore,  the  chil- 
dren  depend  upon   us   for  example.      Children 
are    often   passionate,    irritable,    violent.      How 
far-reaching  is  our  example !  What  a  challenge  then 
to  us  to  become  self -controlled  and  serene  for  their 
[25] 


MARRIAGE     AND     DIVORCE 

sake !  The  lights  and  the  shadows  from  our  coun- 
tenance fall  into  their  life.  Let  us  remember,  no 
matter  what  happens  to  us,  no  matter  what  grief 
gnaws  at  our  heart,  no  matter  what  loss  we  may 
sustain,  what  we  owe  to  the  little  ones;  and  let  us 
try  to  achieve  serenity,  patience,  and  resignation, 
so  that  the  light  of  our  countenance  may  illumine 
their  life,  and  the  shadow  of  our  countenance  may 
not  darken  it. 

Thus  the  presence  of  children  becomes  the  great 
stimulus  to  the  growth  and  development  of  perfec- 
tions which  are  as  yet  but  latent  in  the  husband  and 
wife.  All  through  our  life  this  process  of  education 
proceeds.  The  child  needs  father  and  mother;  but 
it  does  not  need  them  only,  as  some  think,  alter- 
nately, now  the  father's  influence  and  then  the 
mother's,  or  in  some  things  the  father's  influence 
and  in  other  things  the  mother's.  The  child  needs 
the  father's  masculine  influence,  and  the  mother's 
feminine  influence  always  together,  the  two  streams 
uniting  to  pour  their  fructifying  influence  through 
the  child's  life  into  the  life  of  humanity. 

There  have  been  two  conceptions  of  marriage 
which  have  played  a  great  part  in  the  world.  One 
[26] 


MARRIAGE 

is.  contained  in  tlio  Bible,  where  it  is  written 
that  the  woman  was  made  of  man,  flesh  of  his 
flesh,  and  hone  of  his  bone,  and  that  she  is  to 
he  a  helpmeet  at  his  side.  That  view  is  too 
narrow.  Say  not  only  flesh  of  his  flesh,  and  hone 
of  his  bone,  but  spirit  of  his  spirit,  mind  of  his 
mind,  and  heart  of  his  heart;  and  say  not  only 
that  she  is  to  be  a  helpmeet  at  his  side,  but  that 
he  also  is  to  be  a  helpmeet  at  her  side.  The  second 
view  is  stated  by  Plato,  where  he  says  that  lovers 
are  two  halves  of  one  soul,  inevitably  predestined 
for  each  other  from  the  beginning.  This  view,  too, 
is  inadequate.  It  is  not  true  that  husband  and 
wife  are  predestined  for  one  another  in  this  sense. 
Experience  shows  that  the  first  meeting  is  often 
accidental;  and  it  is  an  exaggeration  to  say  that 
no  other  marriage  might  have  been  possible.  And 
so  let  us  rather  adopt  a  third  view,  namely,  that 
however  accidental  the  first  meeting  may  have 
been,  on  the  basis  of  it,  with  the  help  of  the  moral 
ideal,  we  shall  erect  a  permanent  union,  and 
transform  what  was  perchance  mere  accident  in  its 
inception,  into  the  region  of  eternal  validity  and 
significance. 

[27] 


MARRIAGE     AND     DIVORCE 

Marriage  is  preeminently  a  moral  fellowship. 
But  if  this  be  so,  do  there  not  occur  cases  in 
which  one  or  the  other  party  appears  to  be  un- 
worthy of  the  moral  trust  imposed  upon  him,  and 
perhaps  even  incapable  of  fulfilling  it?  And 
should  not  the  marriage  tie  therefore  in  such  cases 
be  dissolved  ?  This  raises  the  problem  of  divorce, 
and  to  this  I  am  next  to  address  myself. 


DIVORCE 


DIVORCE 

I  CAN  well  understand  what  preachers  of  the 
old  school  mean  when  they  tell  us  in  their  writ- 
ings that,  before  stepping  into  the  pulpit  to  speak 
on  a  difficult  subject,  they  wrestled  with  the  Lord 
day  and  night,  praying  to  be  so  guided  that  their 
words  should  not  lead  others  into  error.  If  I  were 
a  preacher  of  the  old  school,  there  are  two  things 
that  I  should  pray  for,  in  approaching  this  diffi- 
cult subject  of  divorce :  the  one,  that  respect  for  the 
at  moral  principles  underlying  the  divorce  prob- 
lem might  not  make  me  hard  and  unfeeling  toward 
the  human  suffering  involved ;  and  the  other  that 
the  contemplation  of  that  suffering  might  not  make 
me  less  inflexible  to  voice  the  supereminent  moral 
considerations  that  should  determine  our  judg- 
ment in  this  matter. 

Let  me  first  make  clear  my  point  of  view.  It  is  not 
[31] 


MARRIAGE     AND     DIVORCE 

my  purpose  to  discuss  what  the  law  on  the  statute 
book  ought  to  be.  I  am  well  aware  that  a  law  must 
be  backed  by  the  moral  sentiment  of  the  commu- 
nity, and  that  a  law  which  is  in  advance  of  that 
sentiment  remains  dead  letter.  I  am  considering 
here  the  ethics  of  divorce,  and  the  question  raised 
is,  what  should  be  the  standard  of  ethically-minded 
people,  whether  or  not  that  standard  can  be  enforced 
by  law.  There  are  many  things  which  the  law  per- 
mits, but  which  a  man  of  high  moral  sense  would 
not  permit  himself.  What  should  such  persons 
think  on  this  subject?  In  what  direction  should 
they  try  to  influence  the  moral  opinion  of  the 
community  ? 

Again,  I  do  not  take  the  attitude  of  one  who  is 
prepared  to  lay  down  even  an  ideal  law  in  abso- 
lute terms,  without  admitting  a  possibility  of  cor- 
rection or  a  change  of  view.  There  are  certain 
fundamental  convictions  on  this  matter,  concern- 
ing which  I  never  have  changed  my  opinion  and 
feel  confident  that  I  never  shall.  There  are  a  great 
many  marginal  points  in  the  discussion  of  the 
problem  of  divorce  which  may  well  be  subject  to 
revision.  I  want  to  give  the  best  light  I  have,  and 
[32] 


DIVORCE 

a^k  others  to  sift  my  opinions,  and  see  how  far  these 
opinions  commend  themselves  to  them.  The  ques- 
tion presents  itself  to  me  in  these  terms:  If  any  one 
in  whose  moral  welfare  I  am  deeply  interested,  of 
whom  1  believe  that  he  or  she  wants  to  live  out  the 
best  possible  life,  is  face  to  face  with  this  problem 
of  divorce,  how  shall  I,  as  a  religious  teacher,  advise 
that  person?  It  is  not  a  question  of  laying  down 
the  law,  but  of  giving  my  best  possible  counsel  to 
those  who  want  to  live  the  best  possible  life.  Fur- 
thermore, I  am  vested  by  the  State  of  New  York 
with  authority  to  perform  the  marriage  ceremony; 
but  the  State  leaves  it  to  every  religious  society 
to  determine  the  conditions  upon  which  that  cere- 
mony shall  be  performed;  therefore  I  am  face  to 
face  with  the  question  whether  in  a  given  case  I 
shall  perform  the  marriage  ceremony  for  divorced 
persons.  The  question  is  a  very  practical  one,  and 
a  definite  position  must  be  taken.  What  shall  that 
position  be  ? 

To  begin  with,  I  would  distinguish  between  the 
inducements  that  lead  to  marriage  and  the  obliga- 
tions ensuing,  after  the  marriage  is  effected.  That 
distinction  is  not  sufficiently  kept  in  mind.  The 
[33] 


MARRIAGE     AND     DIVORCE 

inducements  to  marriage  are  often  of  an  ephemeral 
sort,  beauty,  for  instance,  or  charm,  or  accomplish- 
ments. But  the  most  romantic  lover  knows  that 
beauty  will  fade.  Beauty  may  be  an  inducement 
to  marriage,  but  it  cannot  be  a  stipulation;  it  is 
not  implied  in  the  marriage  bond  that  the  mar- 
riage shall  last  as  long  as  beauty  lasts.  The  same 
is  true  of  accomplishments.  Very  often  accomplish- 
ments are  exaggerated.  One  whose  vision  is  dis- 
torted by  the  first  fervor  of  passion,  sees  the  ac- 
complishments of  the  beloved  person  in  an  ideal 
light;  a  mere  hint  of  talent  is  often  taken  to  mean 
far  more  than  it  really  does  mean.  Or  even  if  there 
be  real  talent,  the  conditions  of  marriage  often 
necessitate  its  neglect.  It  cannot  be  said  that  mar- 
riage shall  last  as  long  as  the  talent  lasts.  It  is  not 
even  true  that  goodness,  or  excellent  moral  traits 
are  the  condition  of  marriage.  For  as  to  these  moral 
traits,  it  is  certain  that  there  are  concomitant  de- 
fects which  must  appear  more  and  more  in  the 
close  association  of  married  life.  Hence,  beauty, V 
grace,  moral  excellence,  are  to  be  regarded  as  gar-  / 
lands  of  roses  which  the  man  and  the  woman  wind  \ 
about  each  other's  necks,  by  which  they  draw  to-  ' 
[34] 


DIVORCE 


,  and  together  are  drawn  to  the  steps  of  the   \ 
'  altar;  but  they  are  not  the  conditions  upon  which 
the  obligations  of  marriage  rest. 

What  are  these  obligations?  They  arc  to  per- 
petuate and  enhance  the  spiritual  life  of  the 
world,  to  keep  burning  the  flame  of  mentality  on 
earth ;  to  subject  oneself  to  the  modifying  influence 
of  the  other  sex,  and  to  throw  all  the  profit  of  this 
influence  into  the  life  of  the  offspring;  to  confer 
perpetual  benefits  each  on  the  other,  especially 
benefits  of  the  highest  kind,  by  ministering  each 
to  the  other's  moral  growth. 

Every  one,  I  fancy,  will  concede  that  the  expec- 
tation is  that  the  union  shall  be  permanent.  If  it 
were  not  so,  the  relations  of  the  sexes  in  marriage 
would  soon  approximate  to  those  of  the  brutes. 
And  yet,  it  is  asked,  while  the  expectation  is  that 
of  permanence,  are  there  not  cases  in  which  a 
revision  becomes  necessary,  in  which  a  mistake 
has  been  made,  so  grievous,  so  disastrous  in  its 
consequences,  that  Society  should  step  in  and 
bring  about  a  release  ? 

One  of  the  first  grounds  mentioned  for  release 
from  the  marriage  obligations  is  incompatibility 
[35] 


MARRIAGE     AND     DIVORCE 

of  temper.  This  is  in  one  sense,  the  weakest;  it  is 
open  to  the  greatest  abuse.  I  remember  reading  in 
the  statistics  of  Mr.  Wright,  already  referred  to, 
that  in  one  suit  for  divorce,  the  husband  rested 
his  claim  for  a  separation  on  the  plea  that  the 
company  of  his  wife  was  unfavorable  to  his 
development  as  a  spiritualistic  medium.  The 
flimsiest  pretexts  are  resorted  to  under  the  head 
of  incompatibility.  Very  often  the  incompatibil- 
ities, so-called,  are  nothing  but  manifestations  of 
an  unruly  egotism.  Such  a  thing  as  perfect  com- 
patibility hardly  ever  exists.  Only  in  the  rarest 
instances  do  two  natures  fall  into  tune,  so  as  to 
harmonize  with  each  other, h'ke  the  celestial  spheres 
in  the  conception  of  Plato.  "  She  shall  set  herself  to 
him  like  perfect  music  unto  noble  words  "  —  that 
vision  of  Tennyson's  is  seldom  realized.  In  actual 
marriages  it  often  happens  that  one  will  prevails, 
sometimes  the  man's  and  sometimes  the  woman's, 
or  husband  and  wife  agree  to  a  division  of  authority. 
Even  in  the  best  marriages,  harmony  is  secured 
by  a  process  of  accommodation.  In  fact,  it  is  the 
object  of  marriage,  as  I  cannot  too  earnestly  re- 
peat, that  a  man  should  become  other  than  he  is 
[36] 


DIVORCE 

through  the  influence  of  the  woman,  and  that  tin- 
woman  should  become  other  than  she  is  th rough 
the  influence  of  the  man.  This  process  of  mutual 
modification  is  of  the  very  essence  of  the  service 
they  render  to  each  other.  Now,  incompatibility  of 
temper   is    very   often    nothing    but    a   kind    of 
mutinous,  egotistical  resistance  to  the  process  of 
accommodation.  It  is  one  of  the  greatest  misfor-  /' 
tunes  that  young  people  so  often  enter  into  mar-  Y 
riage  without  the  least  idea  that  the  assumption  / 
of  this  relation  means  a  change  in  one's  nature, 
and  that  no  one  should  enter  marriage  unless  he 
is  willing  to  undergo  that  great  change.  This  most 
important  social  topic  is  unfortunately  one  of  the 
least  analyzed  and  least  amplified  in  literature  or  , 
in  religious  and  moral  teaching. 

At  the  same  time,  it  cannot  be  denied  that  there 
are  profound  incompatibilities,  mental  and  aes- 
thetic, and  that  these  incompatibilities  appear 
very  often  after  marriage.  The  wife,  for  instance, 
is  aesthetically  developed,  fond  of  music,  art,  and 
poetry;  the  husband  is  simply  a  plain  business 
man,  without  the  least  comprehension  of  her 
ideals,  or  sympathy  with  them.  What  a  terrible 
[37] 


MARRIAGE     AND     DIVORCE 

danger!  How  prone  she  will  be  to  seek  sympathy 
from  idealistic  friends.  Or  again  the  husband 
is  a  person  of  great  mental  activity,  having  the 
interests  of  a  scholar,  with  intellectual  ambitions 
that  occupy  his  mind  with  a  sort  of  jealous  insist- 
ence, and  plans  that  engross  his  attention  for 
years.  These  interests  demand  great  concentra- 
tion ;  they  often  absorb  him  entirely,  they  require 
him  to  burn  the  midnight  oil.  While  the  good, 
kind  wife  at  his  side  has  not  the  least  con- 
ception of  the  things  that  are  so  vital  to  him;  but 
is  jealous  of  his  intellectual  pursuits.  As  to  the 
book  he  writes,  she  can  understand  the  fame  and 
social  prestige  it  brings;  but  what  it  really  means 
in  his  life  she  does  not  know.  Just  as  it  is  very  dif- 
ficult for  two  people  whose  gait  is  different  to 
walk  side  by  side,  so  it  is  with  two  people  whose 
mental  gait  is  different;  for  there  is  the  long  stride 
and  the  short  stride  in  the  intellectual  world  as 
well  as  in  the  physical.  Yet  mental  and  aesthetic 
incompatibilities  can  be  overcome  where  there  is 
a  really  serious  sense  of  duty,  where  the  moral 
feeling  is  strong.  I  cite  an  instance  from  life: 
The  man  was  the  kind  of  scholarly  person  whom  I 
[38] 


DIVORCE 

have  just  desrribed;  and  the  woman  \vas  an  affec- 
tionate but  rather  commonplace  housekeeper, — 
quite  as  often  of  course  the  reverse  is  true,  that 
the  woman  is  the  more  gifted  intellectually.  This 
couple  grew  somewhat  weary  of  each  other,  and 
the  evenings  they  spent  in  each  other's  company 
became  more  and  more  irksome.  Then  it  happened 
that  there  came  into  their  circle  of  acquaintances 
a  brilliant  stranger,  a  woman  of  rare  literary  gift, 
who  responded  intuitively  and  spontaneously  to 
this  man's  need.  It  was  a  delightful  experience 
for  him,  and  a  perfectly  innocent  friendship  was 
formed  on  the  basis  of  common  literary  pursuits. 
Unwittingly  both  became  involved  more  and 
more,  the  situation  grew  intolerable,  and  at  last 
the  man  was  compelled  to  face  it.  Then  he  said 
to  himself:  Why  should  I  not  acknowledge  that  I 
have  made  a  mistake,  that  I  am  really  not  mated 
to  the  woman  who  is  my  wife,  and  that  I  am 
mated  to  this  other  ?  Why  should  I  suffer  all  my 
days  because  of  the  mistake  I  made  when  I  was  a 
mere  stripling  ?  And  having  put  the  case  to  him- 
self in  this  way,  his  strong  moral  nature  bravely 
asserted  itself,  and  he  turned  completely  about. 
[39] 


MARRIAGE     AND     DIVORCE 

He  suddenly  awoke  to  certain  primitive  and  ele- 
mentary considerations,  which  he  had  before 
overlooked.  He  said  to  himself,  "I  have  made 
this  woman  my  wife,  I  have  pledged  my  honor, 
and  she  is  the  mother  of  my  children.  How  can  I 
talk  of  the  needs  of  friendship,  or  of  literary 
pleasures,  when  my  honor  is  at  stake !  A  man  who 
has  once  given  his  word  in  a  business  matter 
would  not  retract;  how,  then,  can  a  man  who 
has  given  his  word  at  the  altar  retract  it?"  So 
he  decided  that  this  friendship  must  cease,  and 
that  he  must  in  all  honor  accept  his  marriage, 
even  though  it  were  a  cross.  He  resblved  that  he 
would  do  his  best  to  make  life  happy  for  the 
mother  of  his  children,  would  comfort  and  pro- 
tect her;  and  if  she  did  not  follow  him  mentally, 
he  would  help  her  as  far  as  she  was  willing  and 
able  to  develop,  and  then  would  bear  with  her 
defects  in  patience.  Then  something  very  strange 
happened.  The  wife  realized  that  there  was  a 
change  in  him,  and  that  he  saw  her  in  a  new  lights 
He  did  not  look  on  her  any  longer  with  inward  pro- 
test, and  with  the  barely  suppressed  desire  to 
escape;  but  he  looked  on  her  now  in  the  attitude 
[40] 


DIVORCE 

of  one  who  was  anxious  to  confer  benefits  upon 
her.  She  was  touched  by  his  now  attitude;  she 
felt  it  to  the  very  heart,  and  it  worked  a  great 
change,  developed  a  new  geniality  in  her.  She 
responded  to  the  new  atmosphere  of  kindi 
which  had  taken  the  place  of  unkindness,  and  a 
miracle  occurred.  These  people  actually  became 
happy  in  each  other's  society,  and  the  man  who 
rei-ntered  his  home  in  the  spirit  of  the  martyr, 
lived  to  congratulate  himself  upon  having  escaped 
a  great  peril.  He  was  a  gentleman,  and  he  had  his 
reward. 

Of  course,  there  are  cases  where  the  situation  is 
much  more  difficult,  and  where  there  are  incom- 
patibilities, not  mental  or  aesthetic,  but  moral;  as, 
for  instance,  in  the  case  of  habitual  inebriety.  And 
the  habit  of  inebriety  or  addiction  to  the  use  of 
injurious  drugs,  like  chloral  or  morphine,  and  de- 
generation or  cruelty,  occur  not  only  in  the  lowest 
strata  of  society,  but  in  the  upper  strata  of  society 
as  well.  But  I  should  not  concede  that  even  in 
those  cases  a  separation  is  always  necessary.  No- 
where does  the  famous  word  of  Jesus,  in  reply  to 
the  disciple  who  asked  him,  "How  often  shall  I 
[41] 


MARRIAGE     AND     DIVORCE 

forgive?"  apply  so  fitly  as  in  the  marriage  rela- 
tion. "  Shall  it  be  seven  times  ? "  asked  the  dis- 
ciple. And  Jesus  answered  "No,  seventy  times 
seven."  Nowhere  is  patience  and  the  spirit  of 
mutual  toleration  more  imperative;  even  in  what 
appear  to  be  extreme  cases,  they  sometimes  pro- 
duce quite  unlocked  for  results.  I  knew  a  man  who 
was  a  confirmed  drunkard,  and  who  made  a  veri- 
table hell  of  his  home.  When  he  was  under  the  in- 
fluence of  liquor  he  was  literally  beside  himself,  and 
behaved  like  a  fiend.  He  had  a  lovely  wife  and 
sweet  children,  one  of  whom  used  to  wait  for  him 
near  the  door  of  the  saloon,  to  take  him  home. 
But  the  wife  had  the  unspeakable  art  of  preserv- 
ing the  children's  respect  for  their  father.  He 
was  kind  and  good  when  he  was  sober.  She  taught 
them  that  then  he  was  his  true  self,  and  made 
them  think  of  him  as  the  true  father  only  in  those 
moments.  Finally  this  attitude  of  hope  for  him, 
and  the  children's  appeal  that  he  should  always 
be  their  true  father,  and  come  back  to  himself 
and  to  them,  wrought  a  marvelous  change.  He 
entirely  overcame  his  passion  for  liquor,  and  the 
shattered  home  was  rebuilt.  It  was  a  miracle,  but 
[42] 


DIVORCE 

such  miracles  arc  possible.  We  arc  l<><>  ;ipt  to 
strike  our  colors  and  lay  down  our  arms;  to  say, 
"It  is  of  no  use!"  l»eforewe  have  rcallv  e\haii>t<  d 
all  our  resources.  We  faint  too  quirk  lv  in  tin- 
moral  struggle. 

But  in  certain  cases  I  admit  that  the  evil  is  intoler- 
able, and  there  must  be  a  remedy.  What  I  should 
advise  in  such  cases  is  separation.  Separation  has 
different  degrees.  Separation  is  often  good  even  for 
those  who  are  happy  in  their  love.  It  is  wonderful, 
for  instance,  how,  on  a  journey  at  a  distance  from 
home,  one  who  loves  another  very  much  seems  to 
see  his  love  and  his  relation  to  the  other  in  a  new 
perspective.  After  a  brief  absence  those  who  are 
really  united  will  often  come  back  to  each  other's 
side,  feeling  as  if  they  had  been  married  anew. 
But  for  those  who  are  not  happily  wedded,  such  a 
separation  is  often  a  great  help.  Some  persons  get  a 
sort  of  mental  vertigo  from  the  effect  of  constant 
friction.  Give  them  a  short  respite,  let  them  stand 
off  and  view  each  other  in  a  new  light,  and  the 
chances  are  that  they  will  correct  their  misunder- 
standings, and  come  back  in  a  more  conciliatory 
spirit.  This  will  be  especially  likely  if  there  are 
[43]  ' 


MARRIAGE     AND     DIVORCE 

children  whom  both  love.  Children  are  the  great 
argument  to  bring  together  those  who  are  alien- 
ated. How  can  two  people  who  love  the  same  child 
avoid  being  drawn  together,  especially  if  the  child 
be  sick  and  the  parents  meet  at  the  bedside  of  the 
little  sufferer.  Nature  has  instituted  this  bond  of 
the  child.  It  is  a  terrible  thing  that  parents  of  the 
same  child  should  not  be  kind  to  one  another.  The 
temporary  separation  often  gives  an  opportunity 
for  the  love  of  the  child  to  operate,  and  to  produce 
its  beneficent  effect.  Separations,  as  I  have  said, 
may  be  of  various  degrees.  There  is  the  voluntary 
separation  for  a  short  term,  the  separation  for  a 
long  term,  the  separation  decreed  by  the  court,  — 
it  may  be  with  the  right  to  visit  the  children  and  to 
influence  them,  or  with  that  right  denied.  It  seems 
to  me  that  separation,  if  it  were  properly  managed 
by  the  courts,  might  fulfil  every  requisite,  without 
need  of  recourse  to  divorce. 

This  is  my  position:  separation,  but  never  di- 
vorce. But,  it  may  be  asked,  what  is  the  difference 
between  separation  and  divorce,  between  a  sepa- 
ration which  is  renewed  again  and  again,  and 
which  in  effect  is  permanent,  and  divorce  ?  The  dif- 
[44] 


DIVORCE 

ferenceis  that  in  case  of  separation  there  is  no  per- 
mission to  remarry.  And  so  far  as  release  from  in- 
tolerable conditions  is  concerned,  it  seems  to  me 
that  separation  entirely  answers  the  purpose. 

Now,  as  to  the  remarriage  of  a  divorced  person : 
this  is  sometimes  represented  as  analogous  to  tin- 
case  of  second  marriage;  and  it  is  said  that  if  sec- 
ond marriages  are  permitted,  the  remarriage  of 
persons  who  have  once  made  a  failure  of  marriage 
should  be  permitted  also.  But  the  two  cases  are 
altogether  different.  Whether  a  person  does  well  to 
contract  a  second  marriage  or  not  depends  on  cir- 
cumstances. But  as  to  the  moral  purity  of  the  sec- 
ond marriage,  it  seems  to  me  there  can  be  no  ques- 
tion. Marriage  is  a  relation  between  the  living,  not 
between  the  living  and  the  dead.  Marriage  is  a 
reciprocal  relation ;  and  there  is  no  reciprocity  pos- 
sible between  the  living  and  the  dead.  In  the  case 
of  a  second  marriage,  the  partner  to  the  marriage 
tie  is  no  longer  living;  in  the  case  of  marriage  after 
divorce,  the  person  to  whom  faith  has  been  pledged 
in  lifelong  union  is  still  living.  This  distinction 
ought  to  be  clear. 

Now,  by  what  argument  is  divorce  supported  ? 
[45] 


MARRIAGE     AND     DIVORCE 

The  most  common  argument  is  the  claim  that 
people  should  not  be  made  to  suffer  for  a  single 
mistake,  that  the  happiness  of  a  lifetime  should 
not  be  sacrificed,  and  that  the  punishment  is  dispro- 
portionate to  the  fault.  But  as  to  the  disproportion- 
ateness,  is  it  not  true  that  this  appears  in  life  every- 
where, and  that  it  is  the  only  effectual  means  of 
educating  the  human  race  ?  It  appears  in  our  deal- 
ings with  Nature.  A  person  absent-mindedly  mis- 
takes a  bottle,  and  instead  of  taking  medicine 
drinks  poison.  The  fault,  how  venial;  the  punish- 
ment how  terrible !  In  the  case  of  our  social  acts  it 
is  not  different.  A  young  fellow  under  the  influence 
of  boon  companions,  after  he  has  perhaps  indulged 
too  freely  in  wine,  enlists  in  the  army.  On  the 
morrow  he  bitterly  repents.  What  has  he  done? 
He  has  enlisted,  and  soon  he  will  be  sent  to 
the  front,  perhaps  to  meet  his  death.  A  man  enters 
into  a  business  partnership  with  a  person  who 
proves  to  be  the  worst  of  associates;  but  he  has 
made  a  contract,  and  cannot  prove  a  fraud,  and  so 
must  live  up  to  his  contract.  There  are  countless 
situations  in  which  decisions  become  practically 
irrevocable,  at  least  for  a  term  of  years,  and  in 
[46] 


DIVORCE 

which  the  penalty  is  out  of  all  proportion  to  the 
fault.  But  if  we  cannot  help  the  results  of  rash 
and  ill  -  mated  marriages,  we  ought  to  show 
more  kindness  to  those  who  have  not  yet  en- 
tered the  marriage  relation.  We  ought  to  give 
young  people  some  idea  of  the  gravity  of  the  step 
they  arc  taking.  We  ought  to  teach  the  ethics  of  \ 
marriage  in  the  Churches,  in  Ethical  Societies.  In 
that  respect  we  are  all  culpably  negligent.  Al- 
though in  the  Ethical  Society  we  have  tried  to  4 
give  to  the  young  some  idea  of  the  nature  of  this 
bond,  there  is  far  more  yet  to  be  done. 

The  main  source  of  evil  lies  in  the  fact  that 
even  the  worthiest  people  suppose  that  happiness 
is  the  -chief  object  of  marriage.  Let  me  not  seem 
indifferent  to  the  bliss  of  happy  marriage,  because 
I  deny  that  happiness  is  the  highest  aim  of  mar- 
riage. Of  course,  to  confer  happiness  upon  one 
another  is  one  of  the  duties  and  pleasures  of  true 
wedlock ;  and  in  the  discharge  of  the  highest  func- 
tions of  marriage  happiness  must  result.  But  still 
happiness  is  an  incident,  a  concomitant,  and  you 
cannot  make  it  the  highest  end,  without  coming  to 
the  intolerable  position  that  marriage  should  cease 
[47] 


MARRIAGE     AND     DIVORCE 

when  happiness  ceases.  The  highest  end  of  mar- 
riage is  to  perpetuate,  promote  and  enhance  the 
spiritual  life  of  the  world,  to  keep  the  flame  of  men- 
tality burning  in  the  universe,  and  to  confer  per- 
petual benefits  one  upon  the  other,  especially  the 
highest  benefits  of  moral  growth.  The  supreme  aim 
of  marriage  is  to  contribute  to  the  growth  of  char- 
acter, of  the  mind,  of  the  feelings,  —  of  the  whole 
nature.  That  is  a  blessed  task  where  the  union  is 
blessed.  Where  the  union  is  unblessed,  the  per- 
formance of  it  may  be  attended  with  unspeakable 
pain.  Yet  it  must  be  attempted  none  the  less  and 
persevered  in  to  the  end. 

There  are  incompatibilities  of  temper  also  in 
parental  and  filial  relations.  Sometimes  fathers  and 
sons  do  not  agree,  and  mothers  and  daughters  do 
not  agree.  Is  that  a  reason  why  they  should  shake 
off  their  obligations  to  one  another  ?  Why  not  pro- 
pose the  divorce  also  of  the  parental  and  filial 
ties  ?  Those  incompatibilities  are  sometimes  just 
as  painful;  they  are  the  source  of  just  as  much 
unhappiness.  Old  King  Lear  in  the  play  was  a 
somewhat  difficult  person  to  keep  house  with,  in- 
tractable, choleric,  querulous  with  old  age,  full  of 
[48] 


DIVORCE 

caprice;  yet  we  should  hardly  say  that  therefore  his 
precious  daughters,  Goneril  and  Ilegan,  were  justi- 
fied in  casting  him  out  into  the  storm.  And  still  more 
clearly  does  this  appear  in  the  case  where  it  is  the 
son  or  the  daughter  that,  proves  a  disappointment. 
The  relations  to  a  child  ought  to  be  a  source  of 
great  happiness,  and  often  are;  but  suppose  they 
are  not.  The  son  has  broken  every  commandment ; 
is  defiant  and  dissipated,  a  wastrel,  a  ne'er-do- 
well,  a  prodigal,  a  profligate.  Can  the  parent,  there- 
fore, throw  off  his  obligations  ?  He  may  exile  the 
boy  from  home,  commanding  him  to  swim  the 
swirling  current  of  life  with  his  own  strength, 
without  parental  aid!  But  When  that  is  done  it 
should  be  done  only  for  purposes  of  reclamation. 
The  parental  hand  is  not  really  withdrawn  from 
him  —  that  cannot  be.  If  in  appearance  he  is  left  to 
his  own  devices,  still  from  a  distance  he  is 
guarded.  One  cannot  disown  a  son;  that  is  done 
in  novels,  but  it  is  impossible,  at  least  to  a  moral 
person,  in  real  life.  So  one  cannot  disown  a  spouse. 
It  may  be  said  that  in  the  one  case  the  tie  is  a 
natural  tie,  a  tie  of  consanguinity;  and  that  in 
the  other  case  the  tie  is  not  of  so  close  a  nature; 
[49] 


MARRIAGE     AND     DIVORCE 

but  I  maintain  that  the  mutual  surrender  in  mar- 
riage takes  the  place  of  the  natural  tie,  otherwise  it 
were  unutterably,  intolerably  base.  A  tie  as  strong 
as  that  of  nature  has  been  formed,  when  once 
there  has  been  this  mutual  surrender.  The 
husband  cannot  cut  the  wife  adrift,  nor  can  the 
wife  cut  the  husband  adrift,  no  matter  what 
faults  appear,  any  more  than  the  parent  can  cut  the 
child  adrift.  True,  it  is  very  hard  sometimes  to  bear 
the  burden  of  this  law !  I  said  at  the  beginning  that  if 
I  were  a  praying  parson,!  should  pray  for  sympathy 
not  to  become  unfeeling  to  the  complex,  secret 
agony  herein  involved.  But  the  law  is  inexorable. 
The  father  must  bear  his  trouble,  if  the  burden  of  a 
prodigal  son  is  laid  upon  him.  And  the  wife  and 
husband  together  must  bear  their  trouble,  if  trouble 
be  laid  upon  them. 

I  think  this  is  true,  even  in  those  cases  in  which 
there  has  been  great  and  open  moral  disgrace, 
where  the  man  has  even  committed  crime.  The 
wife  of  the  defaulting  bank  official  still  owes  him  a 
duty,  namely,  to  tread  with  him  the  steep  path 
that  leads  up  from  the  moral  depths  to  the 
heights  of  reclamation  and  regeneration.  By  her 
[50] 


DIVORCE 

innocent  suffering  she  exerts  a  purifying,  purga- 
torial influence  upon  him.  Vicariously  she  shares 
his  guilt,  and  in  so  doing  she  manifests,  she  wins 
her  own  highest  spiritual  nature. 

There  is  an  analogy  in  the  case  of  the,  so-called, 
incurably  insane.  Society  does  not  take  the  lives  of 
such  persons.  Were  we  positively  certain  that  they 
are  incurable,  perhaps  society  might  relieve  them 
of  their  death-in-life.  But  we  can  never  be  positive- 
ly sure.  So  is  it  in  the  case  of  those  who  are  de- 
graded and  depraved.  They  seem  dead,  indeed; 
but  they  are  potentially  living.  If  it  could  be  proved 
in  any  case  that  a  person  is  really  morally  past 
hope,  then  I  should  say,  "Yes,  divorce!  because 
marriage  is  a  bond  between  the  living,  and  not 
between  the  living  and  the  dead. "  But,  morally 
speaking,  we  never  can  say  of  a  person  that  he  is 
past  hope;  and  if  our  efforts  do  not  succeed  with 
respect  to  him;  they  succeed  with  respect  to  our- 
selves at  least,  if  they  are  earnestly  made.  For 
every  time  we  put  forth  an  effort  for  another's  re- 
form, we  ourselves  increase  in  spiritual  worth. 

And  this  brings  me  to  the  supreme  crime  against 
marriage,  that  crime  which  in  the  stringent  laws 
[51] 


MARRIAGE     AND     DIVORCE 

of  the  State  of  New  York,  is  admitted  as  an  ade- 
quate ground  for  divorce.  I  am  compelled  to  reject 
even  the  breach  of  the  seventh  commandment,  as  a 
ground  for  divorce.  It  is  ground  for  separation  un- 
doubtedly; but  why  should  there  be  permission 
to  remarry  ?  To  the  guilty  I  should  not  grant  it, 
because  it  seems  absurd  that  a  person  who  has  just 
demonstrated  his  inability  to  fulfil  the  marriage 
relation  should  be  allowed  immediately  to  reenter 
that  relation.  The  public  conscience  is  constant- 
ly flouted  by  persons  who  are  proved  adulterers 
and  adulteresses,  and  who  immediately  dishonor 
the  marriage  tie,  by  entering  it  anew.  And  to 
the  innocent  it  seems  to  me  unnecessary  to 
grant  remarriage,  and  this  on  grounds  of  feel- 
ing and  of  duty:  on  grounds  of  feeling,  because 
I  cannot  understand  how  a  person  of  fine  feeling 
who  has  been  dishonored  in  that  particular,  even 
through  no  fault  of  his  or  her  own,  after  passing 
through  such  an  experience,  could  wish  to  turn  in  a 
new  direction.  And,  as  to  the  matter  of  duty,  I  do  not 
see  that  one  can  be  discharged  from  it.  That  poor 
wretch  who  has  gone  wrong  is  still  the  spouse. 
Though  he  or  she  may  be  exiled,  yet  there  is  a  re- 
[52] 


DIVORCE 

sponsihnity  left.  Though  the  pledge  of  honor  has 
luvn  violated  by  one  side,  that  does  not  annul  it 
for  the  other.  Marriage  is  not  a  contract.  The  con- 
traet  idea,  as  the  laws  embody  it,  has  greatly 
vitiated  the  right  understanding  of  marriage.  If  it 
were  a  contract,  then  non-observance  on  one  side 
would  mean  the  right  to  cancel  obligation  on  the 
other;  but  it  is  like  a  natural  tie,  and  non-observ- 
ance on  the  one  side  does  not  annul  the  duties  by 
which  a  person  of  high  honor  conceives  himself 
or  herself  bound. 

I  am  no  sentimentalist,  and  I  do  not  underrate 
for  a  moment  the  horror  of  the  crime  of  adultery. 
It  is  so  unspeakably  vile,  that  it  almost  seems 
impossible  to  refer  to  it  publicly  at  all;  and 
yet  there  is  this  to  be  said,  that  even  this  crime  does 
not  always  argue  an  irreparable  turpitude  of  na- 
ture on  the  part  of  those  who  commit  it.  It  is  a  pro- 
found truth  that  many  people  do  not  realize  the 
sanctity  of  the  moral  commandments  until  after 
they  have  come  into  collision  with  them ;  that  often 
one  who  has  transgressed  has  his  eyes  opened  for 
the  first  time  to  the  greatness  of  the  law  which  he 
has  infringed.  It  is  quite  possible  that  the  guilty  may 
[53] 


MARRIAGE     AND     DIVORCE 

acquire  a  finer  and  deeper  realization  of  the  sanctity 
of  the  moral  relation  than  those  who,  because  they 
have  never  been  tempted,  have  never  sinned.  I  do 
not  say  this  to  excuse  or  to  palliate  the  sin.  But 
what  I  mean  is  that  even  in  the  case  of  this  ulti- 
mate crime  against  marriage,  it  is  necessary  to 
discriminate ;  and  it  may  be  possible  even  in  such  a 
case,  while  not  resuming  intimate  fellowship  —  I 
do  not  see  how  that  could  be  possible  —  to  resume 
moral  relations.  I  do  not  say  that  permanent  exile 
from  the  home  is  in  all  cases  indispensable.  I  think 
there  can  be  pardon  even  in  such  cases,  pardon  to 
the  extent  of  the  resumption  of  moral  relations.  I 
suppose  that  is  the  reason  for  the  action  of  Jesus, 
which  at  first  seems  so  hard  to  explain.  They 
brought  to  him  the  woman  taken  in  the  very 
act  of  adultery  and  questioned  him :  The  law  says, 
stone  her;  what  sayest  thou  ?  He  lifted  up  his  face 
from  the  ground  on  which  he  was  writing,  and 
said:  Let  him  who  is  without  sin  cast  the  first 
stone.  And  they  stole  away,  one  after  the  other, 
until  she  was  left  alone.  He  raised  his  face  again 
and  said  to  the  woman :  Go  thy  way,  and  sin  no 
more. 

[54] 


DIVORCE 

But  whether  the  case  be  that  of  penitence  or  im- 
e,   I  should  still  say  that  the  innocent 


spouse  is  bound  to  the  other,  as  the  parent  to  the 
prodigal  son. 

Two  diametrically  opposite  attitudes  are  taken 
on  this  question.  The  one  is  indicated  by  the  tre- 
mendous spread  of  the  divorce  movement.  I  have 
read  lately  in  the  reports  of  the  session  of  theFrench 
Academy  for  1902,  an  article  by  Legrande,  giving 
the  results  of  the  law  of  1884,  which  permitted  di- 
vorce for  the  first  time  in  France.  If  you  will  con- 
sult this  article  you  will  see  how  little  the  expecta- 
tions of  the  authors  of  that  law  have  been  fulfilled. 
It  was  supposed  that  permission  to  secure  divorce 
would  simply  publish  to  the  world  the  disease  that 
had  been  secretly  eating  into  the  vitals  of  society, 
and  that  clandestine  evil  would  decrease  in 
consequence  of  the  permission.  The  contrary 
seems  to  be  the  case.  The  number  of  prose- 
cutions for  adultery  has  increased  ;  the  number  of 
separations,  which  was  three  thousand  before  the 
passage  of  this  law,  has  increased  to  over  seven 
thousand,  the  petitions  for  divorce  to  nine  thous- 
and; and  there  is  reason  to  think  that  the  very  fact 
[55] 


MARRIAGE     AND     DIVORCE 

that  so  many  divorces  are  consummated  has 
shaken,  in  the  general  public,  the  idea  of  the  per- 
manence of  the  marriage  union  upon  which  the 
safety  of  the  home  depends.  If  this  permanence  is 
constantly  disavowed  in  practice,  if  in  thousands 
of  cases  the  courts  are  busy  dissolving  the  unions 
which  were  entered  into  ostensibly  with  the  expec- 
tation of  permanence,  it  must  follow  that  the 
expectation  of  permanence  with  respect  to  mar- 
riage, which  is  the  foundation  of  civilized  society 
and  of  the  social  order,  should  grow  more  and  more 
feeble.  Moreover,  if  divorce  is  granted  in  the  first 
instance,  it  cannot  be  refused  in  the  second  instance 
or  in  the  third ;  and  there  follow  such  scandalous 
performances  as  those  with  reports  of  which  the 
newspapers  have  of  late  entertained  or  horrified  the 
reading  public.  Where  shall  the  line  be  drawn  if 
divorce  is  granted  ?  To  relieve  the  misery^fthejew^ 
shall-^the^expectation  of  the  permanence  of  the 
marriage  union  be  destroyed,  and  thus  misery 
be  imported  into  thousands  of  households,  from 
which  it  might  have  been  averted  ? 

The  other  attitude  toward  the  divorce  question 
is  seen  in  the  reaction  which  is  taking  place  in 
[50] 


DIVORCE 

ecclesiastical  quarters.  This  reaction  seems  to  me 
to  be  open  to  the  objection  that  it  seeks  to  coin 
bat  the  desire  for  liberty.  !>y  shutting  down  upon 
it  with  the  simple  force  of  authority.  The  marriage 
bond  is  declared  to  be  permanent,  not  because 
there  are  valid  reasons  for  such  permanence,  but 
because  the  Lord  has  said :  "  Whom  God  has  join- 
ed, let  not  man  put  asunder."  God  is  supposed  to  be 
a  party  to  the  bond;  and  God  is  supposed  to  be 
offended  if  the  bond  is  dissolved.  But  this  use  of 
dogmatic  authority  is  resented  by  the  modern 
spirit  of  liberty.  Thus  the  position  of  the  Church  is 
not  strong,  and  cannot  be  until  the  Church  is  ready 
to  revise  the  attitude  and  conception  of  marriage 
which  we  find  permeating  the  Bible,  namely,  the 
conception  that  in  marriage  the  man  shall  predomi- 
nate, that  the  man  shall  be  the  head  of  the  wife,  as 
Christ  is  the  head  of  the  Church.  In  driving  those 
who  wish  to  escape  from  the  marriage  connection 
back  into  it,  the  Church  is  obviously  driving  them 
into  a  relation  which  their  sense  of  equality  resents. 
Or  again  the  social  interest  is  set  up  as  against 
the  individual  interest,  and  it  is  said  that  the  indi- 
vidual must  sacrifice  himself  to  the  good  of  society. 
[57] 


MARRIAGE    AND     DIVORCE 

The  good  of  society  demands  that  unions  must  be 
permanent;  hence,  individuals  must  be  sacrificed. 
But  it  must  be  shown  in  addition  that  the  indi- 
vidual interest  and  the  social  interest  are  iden- 
tical, that  he  or  she  who  labors  over  the  lost  and 
seeks  to  reclaim  a  moral  wastrel,  is  not  merely  sac- 
rificing himself  or  herself  to  that  particular  thing, 
the  social  interest ;  but  that  she  or  he  is  rising  by 
such  effort  to  the  sublimest  possible  heights,  is. 
achieving  his  or  her  highest  spiritual  worth. 

This  is  the  position  which  I  have  sought  to  vindi- 
cate. I  have  endeavored  to  give  reasons  in  place  of 
relying  on  authority,  and  to  emphasize  the  opinion 
that  separation  answers  the  purpose  of  relief  and  re- 
lease. The  tie  between  husband  and  wife  is  one  that 
differs  from  the  parental  and  filial,  the  natural  tie, 
only  in  the  fact  that  while  into  the  one  we  are  born, 
into  the  other  we  can  freely  enter,  but  we  are  as 
truly  bound  when  we  have  entered.  The  decision  is 
irrevocable;  the  resolution  cannot  be  rescinded; 
morally  speaking  the  man  and  woman  of  honor 
are  permanently  bound.  One  can  no  more  disown 
a  spouse  than  he  can  disown  his  child. 

To  anyone  who  may  have  to  meet  this  problem 
[58] 


DIVORCE 

practically  in  his  own  life,  I  would  extend  this  word 
of  counsel:  Do  not  have  recourse  to  what  the  law 
permits.  There  are  many  things  permitted  by  the 
law  which  a  person  of  high  breeding  will  not  j>ermit 
himself.  Do  not  seek  divorce.  Do  not  seek  to  cast  >u 
from  you  the  being  to  whom  at  the  altar  you  vowc<  1 
your  troth,  for  better  or  for  worse.  Accept  the 
bond  which  in  one  sense  limits  your  liberty,  but 
which  in  another  sense,  by  the  very  fact  of  your 
accepting  it  voluntarily,  gives  you  a  far  nobler 
liberty. 


THE  ILLUSIONS  AND 
THE  IDEAL  OF  MARRIAGE 


THE  ILLUSIONS  AND  THE  IDEAL 
OF  MARRIAGE 

IT  is  easily  possible  to  speak  profanely  of  love  and 
marriage  under  the  guise  of  a  certain  bluff  frank- 
ness, as  many  examples  in  modern  literature  would 
show.  But  it  is  not  possible  to  conceive  of  the 
marriage  relation  too  finely.  If  it  could  be  ever 
true  to  say  that  at  any  point  the  rainbow  touches 
the  earth,  it  must  be  here,  where  the  most  selfish 
of  passions  in  happy  instances  is  transfigured  into 
the  most  disinterested. 

Marriages  may,  perhaps,  be  divided  into  three 
classes:  those  in  which  the  temporary  idealization 
of  each  by  the  other  lasts  through  the  initial 
stages,  to  be  followed  by  a  rude  awakening;  those 
in  which,  though  the  illusion  lingers  and  is  never 
entirely  obliterated,  it  grows  fainter^as  the  years 
pass,  and  is  gradually  replaced,  as  a  bond  of  union, 
by  habit,  by  tolerance,  of  each  other's  defects,  by 
[63] 


MARRIAGE      AND      DIVORCE 

joint  interest  in  offspring^and  at  best  by  mutual 
goodwill  and  comradeship;  andjastly,_therarer, 
finer  examples  in  which  the  illusion  with  which 
the  relationsnlgjbegan  is~  transformed  into  the 
ideal,  anotne  realization  of  thisisjaccepied^lad 
as  aluprenjetas^gf  fife".  "^There  are  also  instances, 
it  must  be  noted,  in  which,  with  little  or  no  ro- 
,  mantic  feeling  at  the  outset,  a  mere  plain,  matter- 
of-fact  understanding,  the  relationship  deepens  in 
\  the  course  of  time,  and  sometimes  strangely  blos- 
v$oms  into  a  nobler  fellowship. 

Nowhere  does  sejf -deception  or  the  ascription 
of  an  unreal  perfection  to  another  person  seem 
more  permissible  than  in  the  case  of  the  union  of 
the  sexes.  Nature  herself  in  the  heyday  of  youth 
encourages  it,  seems  almost  to  demand  it.  Like 
an  arbor  in  May  thatched  with  wisteria  and  cur- 
tained with  lilac  bushes  at  its  entrance  is  the  fel- 
lowship of  young  lovers,  thatched  and  curtained 
with  illusions.  Often,  like  the  same  arbor  shiver- 
ing under  December  blasts,  the  vines  draggled  and 
torn,  the  bushes  stripped  of  their  foliage  and  of 
their  glad  springtime  flowers,  is  the  same  fellow- 
ship later  on.  Nowhere,  really,  is  falsehood  of 
[64] 


THE      IDEAL      OF      MARRIAGE 

any  kind  more  reprehensible  than  in  our  closest 
relations;  nowhere  is  the  penalty  of  entering  into 
a  relation  with  unfounded  expectations  more 
prompt  and  stem. 

But  in  order  to  be  able  to  diseriminatc  between 
the  deceptive  and  the  true,  the  illusion  and  the 
ideal,  it  behooves  us  to  distinguish  the  nature  of 
the  marriage  relation  from  some  of  the  other  re- 
lations of  life,  to  set  in  relief  certain  of  its  principal 
traits,  and  the  requirements  and  obligations  which 
it  imposes.  And  this  we  shall  now  attempt. 

First,  it  is  the  common  or  joint  life  as  against 
the  single  life.  The  unmarried  woman  is  called  a 
"spinster,"  as  though  her  life  were  but  a  single 
thread^  The  name  "wife"  is  said  to  mean  weaver. 
Truly  she  weaves  into  a  web  her  life  and  the  life 
of  the  family  group.  The  single  man  is  called 
"  bachelor,"  a  name  originally  of  comtempt,  mean- 
ing coward  or  person  of  low  occupation,  while  the 
term  "  husband  "  means  householder.  Marriage  as 
the  common  life  involves  community  more  or  less 
of  goods,  community  of  fortune,  sharing  in  the 
like  prosperity  or  adversity,  sorrow  and  happiness; 
two  streams  of  life  being  combined  into  one.  The 
[651 


MARRIAGE      AND      DIVORCE 

relation  is  constant  and  close  as  no  other.  Neigh- 
bors may  see  little  of  each  other,  business  asso- 
ciates may  confine  their  intercourse  to  business 
matters,  but  normal  conjugal  society  tolerates  no 
such  restrictions,  nor  any  prolonged  interruptions. 
Every  human  being  influences,  consciously  or  un- 
consciously, those  with  whom  he  habitually  comes 
in  contact;  but  in  marriage  one  person  influences 
another  incessantly,  and  generally  more  deeply, 
than  in  any  other  relation.  The  strongest  nature 
cannot  escape  the  penetrating  influence  of  the 
other,  whether  for  good  or  ill.  Hence,  the  im- 
mense responsibility  incurred  by  the  spouses;  each 
holds  in  trust,  to  a  large  extent,  not  only  the  happi- 
ness but  the  spiritual  welfare  of  the  other. 

Secondly,  marriage  is  paradoxical  in  this,  that 
it  partakes  at  once  of  the  nature  of  friendship, 
which  is  wholly  dependent  on  elective  affinity,  and 
is  the  most  voluntary  and  least  constraining  of 
bonds,  and  of  the  nature  of  consanguinity,  which 
is  the  most  coercive  of  all.  As  with  friendship, 
we  are  free  to  contract  a  conjugal  alliance  or  not 
as  we  see  fit,  and  we  are  free  to  choose  a  certain 
person  rather  than  another.  But  having  once  en- 
[66] 


THE     IDEAL     OF      MARRIAGE 

tered  into  this  relation  we  are  no  longer  free,  but 
bound.  Even  the  most  extreme  innovators  in  this 
particular  domain  must  admit  that  the  presump- 
tion of  performance  should  attach  to  unions  in 
marriage — otherwise,  what  is  there  to  distinguish 
them  from  promiscuity? 

The  man  and  woman  who  take  each  other 
in  marriage  stand,  so  to  speak,  at  the  point  of 
junction  between  two  consanguineous  groups,  one 
that  of  which  they  were  born,  the  other  that  which 
is  to  spring  from  their  joint  life.  They  have  father 
and  mother,  brothers  and  sisters,  blood  relation- 
ships lying  back  of  them  which  they  cannot  shake 
off.  And  they  become  the  source  of  similar  ties  of 
blood  between  their  children.  Though  they  them- 
selves, the  parents,  are  of  alien  stock,  their  children 
are  related  to  them  and  to  each  other,  and  through 
their  children  they  themselves  become  related 
to  one  another.  Their  lives  become  interknitted — 
or  interknotted,  as  the  case  may  be — interwoven 
in  any  case  in  the  human  beings  to  whom  they 
have  given  birth,  and  who  participate  in  the 
nature  of  each.  It  is  this  fact  that  makes  marriage 
the  marvelous  thing  it  is,  that  gives  to  it  its  double 
[67] 


MARRIAGE      AND      DIVORCE 

imprint:  the  less  stringent,  more  elective  character 
of  friendship  in  so  far  as  the  relation  between 
the  man  and  the  woman  is  alone  considered,  and 
the  constraining  force  of  the  blood  tie  when  we 
consider  their  relation  to  offspring.  This  accounts 
for  the  circumstance  that  in  many  modern  writers, 
who  minimize  the  relation  to  the  offspring  or  treat 
it  as  incidental,  the  elective  character  of  marriage 
is  made  unduly  predominant.  Laxness  of  the  tie 
is  advocated,  and  the  whole  theory  of  marriage, 
which  should  be  founded  on  the  relation  to  off- 
spring, and  the  strict  bond  between  husband  and 
wife  in  view  of  their  fatherhood  and  motherhood, 
is  distorted. 

I  do  not  claim  that  the  physical  blood  tie  itself 
dictates  duties.  But  it  is  the  basis  on  which 
specific  duties  are  erected.  Specific  duties  arise 
whenever  we  are  the  recipients  of  specific  benefits, 
such  as  the  child  receives  from  its  parents :  or  when 
we  incur  such  specific  responsibilities  as  those  of 
the  parent  toward  the  offspring.  Just  as  we  can- 
not escape  from  the  obligations  arising  from  the 
blood  ties  in  which  we  are  born — just  as  we  cannot 
disown  father  or  mother,  no  matter  how  uncon- 
[68] 


THE      IDEAL      OF      MARRIAGE 

in  trinjMTanirnt  wo  and  they  may  be,  no 
matter  how  distressing  our  contacts  with  them 
may  be,  filial  duty  ever  remaining  intact — so 
neither  can  we  escape  the  obligations  we  owe  to 
those  between  whom  and  ourselves  the  new  blood 
tie  exists,  to  the  spouse  who  becomes  strictly, 
though  indirectly,  related  to  us  through  those  in 
whom  the  life  of  both  equally  coin 

Marriage  involves  the  recapitulation  of  the  fam- 
ily relations  at  a  focus.  It  is  a  prism  that  gathers 
into  a  burning  path  all  the  rays  of  moral  beauty 
in  antecedent  domesticity,  in  order  that  those  rays 
may  spread  outward  into  the  new  home.  And 
this  leads  to  the  third,  the  most  essentially  char- 
acteristic trait.  Marriage  is  an  institution  for  the  j 
perpetuation  of  the  spiritual  life  of  the  species. 
Unlike  the  more  durable  elements  of  nature,  the 
everlasting  hills,  the  solid  rocks,  organisms  are 
frail  and  short-lived.  They  bloom  and  they 
wither.  It  is  curious  to  reflect  how  soft  or  brittle 
is  the  material  of  which  they  consist — flesh  and 
bones  that  crumble  at  death  into  a  little  heap  of 
dust.  Organisms,  therefore,  need  constantly  to  be 
renewed  or  reproduced  if  the  species  is  to  continue; 
[09] 


MARRIAGE      AND      DIVORCE 

and  this  is  as  true  of  the  human  species  as  of  any 
other.  But  in  the  case  of  human  beings,  spiritual 
factors  enter  in  and  constitute  an  enormous  differ- 
ence between  them  and  the  inferior  creatures. 

In  the  lower  ranks  of  life  the  individual  exists 
for  the  sake  of  the  species.  Nature  has  implanted 
the  strong  attraction  of  sex,  as  a  lure,  to  accom- 
plish her  ulterior  purpose,  that  of  the  continuance 
of  the  species  to  which  the  mating  individuals  be- 
long. Unconsciously  they  serve  her  ends.  Among 
human  beings  precisely  the  opposite  becomes  true 
in  proportion  as  the  sex  relation  is  ennobled.  The 
more  it  is  ennobled,  the  more  is  the  continuance 
of  the  life  of  the  species  made  the  occasion  of 
furthering  the  spiritual  interests  of  the  individual, 
of  conducing  to  the  highest  and  subtlest  develop- 
ment of  individuality.  Among  men  and  women 
the  perpetuation  of  the  species  is  the  opportunity 
for  the  working  out  of  most  distinctive  personality. 

This  may  not  be  the  accepted  view  as  yet,  but 
it  is  in  this  direction  that  the  ethical  development 
of  marriage  must  more  and  more  tend.  A  certain 
preparation  for  this  ethical  end  or  ideal,  however, 
is  to  be  found  in  the  increasing  consciousness,  as 
[70] 


THE      IDEAL     OF      MARRIAGE 

civilization  advances,  that  individual  choice  should 
play  a  foremost  part  in  marriage.  Even  in  the 
earlier  stages  of  civili/ution,  where  marriage  by 
capture  or  by  purchase  prevailed,  the  preferences 
of  the  woman  were,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  frequently 
consulted.  And  in  the  Song  of  Songs,  written 
more  than  two  thousand  years  ago,  among  an 
oriental  people,  entertaining  oriental  ideas  on  this 
subject,  we  find  the  tremendous  declaration: 
"Strong  as  death  is  love;  the  flames,  therefore,  are 
flames  of  God,  many  waters  cannot  quench  it.  If 
a  man  were  to  offer  all  the  wealth  of  his  house  in 
return  for  love  he  would  be  despised."  And  it 
cannot  be  maintained  that  individual  choice  is,  in 
its  turn,  a  blind  instrument  used  by  ironical  Na- 
ture for  the  perfection  of  the  species.  Choice  is 
evidently  based  not  on  eugenic  considerations,  but 
on  unanalyzable  idiosyncrasies.  It  is  not  influ- 
enced by  considerations  of  health;  often  the  un- 
sound, especially  the  nervously  imperiled — because 
of  their  more  delicate  sensitiveness — are  preferred. 
It  is  not  in  the  majority  of  instances  dependent 
on  beauty.  It  is  not  even  based,  as  it  should  be, 
pn  a  thorough  knowledge  of  character.  Such  con- 
[71] 


MARRIAGE      AND      DIVORCE 

siderations  are  at  present  being  urged,  and  prop- 
erly urged,  for  the  purpose  of  limiting  and  in- 
structing choice.  But  the  fundamental  right  of 
idiosyncrasy  should  not  be  disturbed  or  altered. 
No  marriage  alliance  is  rightly  contracted  in  which 
the  element  of  preference  is  ignored  or  thwarted. 
At  least  the  absence  of  repugnance  must  be  insisted 
on,  though  a  pronounced  preference  is  the  surer 
starting-point.  Care  should  be  taken,  indeed, 
that  the  preference  be  real,  that  it  be  not  a  passing 
mood  or  fancy,  that  predilection  be  tested,  that 
the  object  of  choice  be  sufficiently  known,  that 
there  be  adequate  opportunities  for  genuine  ac- 
quaintance before  the  bond  is  sealed  and  the 
decisive  step  taken.  But,  with  these  guarantees, 
individual  idiosyncrasies  are  still  to  be  accorded 
their  everlasting  right,  and  no  so-called  superior 
considerations  should  be  allowed  to  intervene.  I 
do  not  here  refer  so  much  to  the  meretricious  at- 
tractions of  title,  wealth  and  of  that  outward 
splendor,  in  the  midst  of  which  the  heart  may  go 
hungering  for  a  lifetime — I  am  thinking  rather  of 
cases  in  which  the  filial  affection  of  the  woman  is 
appealed  to.  The  father,  for  instance,  is  on  the 
[72] 


THE      IDEAL      OF      MARRIAGE 

eve  of  bankruptcy,  and  the  daughter  fa  !>«-«•  ui'lit 
to  accept  an  unwelcome  and  detested  suitor  in 
order  to  save  the  family  name,  the  essential  per- 
sonality of  the  woman  being  required  as  a  sacrifice, 
and  her  own  true  honor  offered  up  to  a  name. 
There  are  certain  intimate  rights  of  moral  selfhood 
over  which  each  one  is  bound  to  stand  guard, 
which  no  one  has  the  right  to  relinquish,  and 
the  right  of  idiosyncrasy  in  the  choice  of  a  marriage 
partner  is  one  of  these. 

Yet  it  is  precisely  at  this  point  that  a  mist  of 
illusion  often  arises,  hangs  over  the  prospect  of 
the  future,  and  later  on  may  produce  disastrous 
results.  The  fact  of  predilection  based  on  idiosyn- 
crasy proves  a  certain  initial  fitness  of  the  two  to 

^V^Mfc 

lead  the  common  life,  and  demonstrates  that  there 
is  a  foundation  on  which  to  build.  But  the  fitness 
is  never  more  than  partial.  Certain  excellent  traits 
— charm  of  person,  sweetness  of  disposition,  virile 
or  tender  qualities — excite  admiration  and  love. 
But  side  by  side  with  these  there  are  in  every 
human  character  grave  flaws.  The  illusion  of 
marriage  consists  in  assuming  that  the  excellence 
permeates  the  whole  nature,  that  the  whole  man 
[73] 


MARRIAGE      AND      DIVORCE 

or  woman  is  fine,  sterling,  competent.  The  illusion 
is  sometimes  obstinately  persisted  in  by  women  or 
men  who  continue  for  years  to  practice  a  blind 
idolatry.  But  in  most  cases  disillusionment  ensues 
as  soon  as  the  grave  faults  are  discovered  that 
exist  alongside  of  the  better  qualities. 

The  question  which  I  would  urge  that  we  should 
ask  ourselves  is:  What  have  we  a  right  to  expect 
in  marriage?  What  is  it  that  we  really  undertake 
when  we  plight  our  troth  to  another?  What  does 
plighting  troth  mean?  Does  it  mean  providing 
for,  sheltering,  guarding,  cherishing,  being  true  in 
the  ordinary  sense  of  fidelity,  that  is,  of  not  allow- 
ing one's  affections  to  wander  in  other  directions? 
Does  it  not,  beyond  all  this,  mean  singling  out 
some  one  person  of  the  opposite  sex,  whom  we 
love  on  the  ground  of  some  glint  of  beauty  or 
power  already  apparent — in  order  that  we  may 
bring  to  light  beauty  and  power  not  yet  apparent  but 
divined  by  us  as  possible,  achieving  this  end  by 
means  of  the  intensive  influence  which  is  possible 
only  in  this  closest  of  intimacies?  The  word  "edu- 
cation" is  unfortunately  often  restricted  in  current 
use  to  school  or  college  education.  But  education, 
[74] 


THE      IDEAL      OF      MARRIAGE 

rightly  understood,  applies  to  the  whole  of  life. 
All  the  different  relations  -eiti/enship,  friendship, 
vocational  experience — are  designed  to  be  educa- 
tive. If  not  to  finish,  they  are  to  fashion  our 
moral  natures.  And  marriage,  above  all,  is  to  be 
spiritually  educative,  designed  to  bring  to  bear 
the  constant,  penetrating,  affirmative  influence 
that  womanhood  at  its  best  is  calculated  to  exert 
on  man,  and  manhood  at  its  best  to  exert  on 
woman. 

A  radical  illusion  that  often  leads  to  shipwreck 
is  the  assumption  that  marriage  is  a  state  of  which 
mutual  happiness,  instead  of  mutual  training,  is 
the  object;  training,  indeed,  under  the  most  felic- 
itous conditions  where  the  choice  has  been  for- 
tunate, but  training  in  any  case.  The  illusion 
consists  in  supposing  that  we  are  to  enjoy  each 
other's  perfections  in  a  state  of  delight,  keen  and 
rapturous  at  first,  milder  but  still  marked  later  on, 
instead  of  our  regarding  marriage  as  a  state  in 
which,  through  the  influence  of  the  sex  nature,  in 
the  nobler  view  of  it,  on  either  side,  we  are  to  win 
from  one  another  such  adumbrations  of  perfection 
as  finite  humanity  is  capable  of. 
[75] 


MARRIAGE      AND      DIVORCE 

But  let  me  try  to  be  more  explicit  as  to  the 
essence  of  this  educative  process.  What  is  it,  we 
ask,  that  woman  can  contribute  toward  the  devel- 
opment of  man,  and  conversely?  I  am  not  now 
speaking  of  the  woman  outside  the  home,  the 
woman  in  the  professions.  It  is  said  that  one- 
eighth  of  the  total  number  of  women  remain  celi- 
bate, but  seven-eighths  do  not.  I  am  here  con- 
cerned with  those  whose  life  is  spent  within  the 
home,  but  whose  interests  assuredly  should  not, 
therefore,  be  restricted  to  the  home,  whose  mental 
outlook  should  embrace  the  whole  of  life.  I  am 
concerned  with  wifehood  and  motherhood,  in 
respect  to  which  the  demand  is  becoming  more 
and  more  exigent  that  it  be  considered  as  a  true 
vocation.  Now  a  vocation  is  an  occupation  which 
is  dedicated  to  a  specific  social  service,  and  is 
pursued  with  an  understanding  of  the  principles 
which  are  involved  in  that  service.  Are  wifehood 
and  motherhood  capable  of  becoming  a  vocation 
in  this  sense?  The  presence  of  the  child  is  the 
capital  fact;  the  purpose  of  human  marriage,  as 
distinct  from  the  joinings  of  the  lower  organisms, 
is  to  perpetuate  the  spiritual  life  upon  earth  in  its 
[76] 


THE      IDEAL      OF      MARRIAGE 

human  vehicles,  and  not  only  to  perpetuate,  but 
enhance  it  from  generation  to  generation.  Even 
when  the  child  is  subnormal,  the  task  of  the 
parents  should  be  to  bring  it  up  as  far  as  possible. 
to  the  level  of  the  normal,  to  advance  it  farther 
than  it  could  possibly  reach  if  left  without  their 
scrupulous  care.  But  in  the  case  of  normal  chil- 
dren the  object  is  so  to  evoke  their  spiritual 
possibilities  as  in  them  to  bring  mankind  forward 
a  step  beyond  the  attainment  of  the  past.  And 
in  order  to  enhance  the  spiritual  life  of  offspring 
it  is  necessary  to  enhance  the  spiritual  life  of  the 
father  and  mother.  It  is  spirit  that  acts  on  spirit; 
it  is  the  personality  that  evokes  personality.  It 
is  the  atmosphere  created  in  the  home — it  is  what 
a  man  and  a  woman  are  in  process  of  becoming 
that  tells.  It  is  their  life  that  makes  its  silent 
but  searching  appeal  to  the  hidden  life  in  the 
young.  The  aim  of  the  woman  in  marriage,  then, 
should  be  to  call  out  the  distinctive  personality 
of  the  man,  and  the  converse  applies  to  the  man, 
with  a  view  to  eliciting  by  their  action  and  reaction 
on  one  another,  the  personal  qualities  that  are 
latent  in  their  offspring. 

[77] 


MARRIAGE      AND      DIVORCE 

Let  me  elaborate  somewhat  what  I  mean. 
Every  occupation  has  an  ideal  and  a  common- 
place side  to  it.  It  may  be  carried  on  in  a  lofty  or 
in  a  mean  spirit.  The  ideal  side  turns  out  to  be 
in  every  case  the  social  side.  The  influence  that 
woman  at  her  best  can  bring  to  bear  upon  man  is 
to  socialize  him  in  his  work,  to  give  him  the  vision 
and  the  incentive  to  follow  his  calling,  not  in  a 
detached  way,  but  in  such  a  way  as  to  do  justice 
to  its  broad  reactions  on  the  life  of  society. 
Woman  at  her  best  is  the  guardian,  I  had  almost 
said  the  incarnation,  of  the  social  spirit.  I  do  not 
mean  merely  that  she  excels  as  a  social  worker, 
although  she  does  that — social  settlements  in  the 
main  are  carried  on  by  women.  But  in  a  larger 
sense  I  conceive  that  woman  is  the  representative 
of  the  social  spirit,  or  rather  of  the  cosmic  prin- 
ciple of  unity  which  in  the  human  sphere  we  call 
the  social  spirit.  The  social  spirit  has  a  cosmic 
background.  Goethe  took  account  of  this  when 
he  penned  his  famous  eulogy  on  the  divinifying 
influence  of  woman.  In  Revelations  we  read  of 
the  woman  who  is  "clothed  with  the  sun."  At 
her  best  she  is  a  sun;  she  exercises  that  kind  of 
[78] 


THE      IDEAL      OF      MARRIAGE 

attractive  force  which  creates  a  system  out  of  the 
lives  that  revolve  about  her.  Her  special  office, 
if  the  paradox  be  allowed,  is  to  stand  for  the  gen- 
eral point  of  view,  for  life  in  its  wholeness.  She  is 
the  factor  of  integration  in  human  society  as  man 
chiefly  is  the  factor  of  differentiation. 

Every  calling  can  be  regarded  in  a  detached 
way,  and  that  is  the  commonplace  way  of  looking 
at  it.  Owing  to  the  excessive  specialization 
and  subdivision  of  labor  it  is  apt  to  be  the  man's 
way.  He  is  prone  to  think  of  his  calling  as  a  means 
of  private  gain.  Or,  if  he  takes  a  somewhat  more 
unselfish  view,  he  will  seek  to  promote  the  isolated 
interests  of  his  calling — the  medical,  the  legal,  the 
artistic — but  still  without  having  regard  to  the 
reactions  of  his  calling  on  society  as  a  whole. 
This  latter  is  the  truly  social  point  of  view. 

For  example,  the  narrow  view  of  business  is 
that  of  the  merchant  or  manufacturer  who,  while 
rendering  a  certain  service  to  society,  is  interested 
predominantly  hi  the  pecuniary  profit  which  he 
can  derive  from  it.  To  him,  the  profit  is  the  prod- 
uct, the  service  the  by-product.  But  from  the 
social  standpoint  the  opposite  is  the  case.  While 
[79] 


MARRIAGE      AND      DIVORCE 

the  merchant  is  entitled  to  a  living,  and  will  al- 
most inevitably,  if  he  renders  a  valuable  service, 
obtain  it,  the  service  itself  is  that  which  should 
count  in  his  total  life  as  a  human  being.  And  it 
is  the  claim  of  the  total  life  that  the  woman  should 
urge.  Further,  the  service  involves  not  only  hon- 
est values  in  the  product,  but  respect  to  the 
human  factors  engaged  in  the  work  of  production. 
The  social  service  rendered  by  an  enlightened  per- 
son in  business  to-day,  the  service  to  others  and 
to  his  own  higher  self,  consists  in  his  contriving 
to  come  into  human  relations  with  the  human  be- 
ings who  work  with  him  and  under  him.  And  one 
of  the  indispensable  prerequisites  of  such  relations 
is  that  the  employer  of  human  beings  should  actu- 
ally know  the  conditions  in  which  they  live.  In 
this  respect  the  wife  of  the  employer  has  a  great 
and  beneficial  role  to  play.  She  can  be  on  the 
social  side  of  his  calling  not  only  an  inspirer,  a 
revealer,  aiding  him  by  her  vision,  but  an  active 
helper  and  sharer  of  his  moral  obligations  toward 
his  employees.  The  lady  of  leisure,  according  to 
the  aristocratic  tradition,  is  supposed  to  be  far 
removed  from  the  dust  of  business.  The  chival- 
[80] 


THE      IDEAL      OF      MARRIAGE 

rous  husband  may  not  intrude  upon  her  things  so 
vulgar  as  busim  This  false  ideal,  while  it 

still  lingers,  is  raj. idly  passing  away.  The  influence 
of  the  woman  who  is  married  to  an  employer 
should  be  to  aid  him  in  developing  excellence  be- 
yond that  which  he  originally  possessed,  by  em- 
phasizing the  social  side  of  his  calling.  Could 
there  be  the  child-labor  that  exists  in  this  country 
to-day  if  the  wives  of  employers  realized  that  it 
is  their  special  function  to  see,  and  help  the  men 
to  see,  the  social  side  of  their. calling? 

The  same  is  true  in  regard  to  all  other  profes- 
sions. Every  one  has  both  a  social  and  a  detached 
aspect.  The  social  demand  on  the  lawyer  of  to- 
day is  that  he  shall  beware  of  commercializing  his 
profession.  The  demand  is  for  a  higher  ethical 
code  within  the  profession,  in  the  relation  of  the 
lawyer  to  his  clients,  but  also,  and  much  more 
insistently,  for  a  higher  ethical  conception  of  the 
relation  of  the  lawyer  to  legislation.  For  his  is 
the  prerogative  and  the  obligation  to  bring  together 
those  often  mutually  repugnant  elements,  the  social 
conscience  and  the  hard  and  fast  legal  machinery, 
so  as  to  make  the  latter  more  flexible  to  the  social 
[81] 


MARRIAGE      AND      DIVORCE 

conscience,  quicker  to  follow  its  abiding  impulses, 
more  prompt  to  mirror  its  increasing  light.  The 
wife  of  the  lawyer  to-day  at  her  best  is  no  longer 
to  be  a  person  too  ignorant  or  too  indifferent  to 
comprehend  the  problems  with  which  her  husband 
has  to  deal.  She  may  not  and  need  not  be  a  legal 
expert.  It  is  her  special  function  to  stand  for  the 
general  point  of  view,  and  were  she  lost  in  the 
intricacies  of  detail  she  could  not  perform  this 
function.  But  the  demands  of  the  social  life,  on 
the  one  hand,  and  the  large  principles  of  the  law 
on  the  other,  she  should  be  able  to  master.  She 
should  hold  the  torch  that  guides  the  expert, 
overweighted  as  he  is  apt  to  be  by  his  expert 
knowledge,  on  the  upward  way. 

In  medicine  the  social  side,  that  is,  the  point  of 
union  between  the  aims  of  the  profession  and  the 
life  of  the  community,  is  being  emphasized  as 
never  before.  The  profession  of  the  physician 
seems  to  be  undergoing  an  evolution  in  three  di- 
rections :  greater  attention  to  the  influence  of  psy- 
chic conditions  on  bodily  health  and  disease, 
greater  attention  to  the  hygienic  and  sanitary 
prevision  in  order  to  forestall  disease,  and  far 
[82] 


THE     IDEAL     OF     MARRIAGE 

greater  at  trillion  to  the  social  condition  of  the 
majority  of  the  poor  \\lio  throng  the  dispensaries 
for  relief. 

Again,  the  religious  teacher  to-day  often  has  an 
agonizing  problem  to  solve.  He  is  bound  to  teach 
the  truth  as  he  sees  it,  even  after  a  change  of  con- 
viction, but  he  may  also  have  to  consider  the 
needs  of  a  family  dependent  on  him,  the  time- 
honored  traditions  of  his  church  and  friends  whom 
he  may  grieve  by  an  avowed  change  of  belief. 
Here  again  it  is  the  social  side  of  the  calling  that 
marks  out  the  ideal  side.  I  refer  to  the  incalcul- 
able social  value  in  a  community  of  men  who  are 
known  to  be  absolutely  sincere  in  the  matter  of 
religious  belief.  They  purify  the  spiritual  life  of 
the  whole  of  society.  And  a  wife,  she  who  has  to 
endure  the  sacrifices  consequent  upon  her  hus- 
band's steadfast  sincerity,  can  bring  her  best 
womanhood  to  bear  by  encouraging  and  support- 
ing the  man  who  chooses  the  hard  but  ennobling 
alternative.  Many  a  woman  has  acted  thus  in 
such  a  situation,  and  saved  the  soul  of  the  man 
whose  business  it  is  to  save  souls. 

These  are  illustrations  of  the  service  which  worn- 
[83] 


MARRIAGE      AND      DIVORCE 

an  at  her  best  renders  to  man,  in  virtue  of  the 
cosmic  principle  of  which   she  is  the  vehicle;  and 
a  man  in  a  sense  repays  this  service,  when  at  his 
best,  by  enlarging  her  mental  horizon,  strengthen- 
ing her  mental  grasp,  infusing  greater  intellectu- 
ality into  her  love,  so  that  it  shall  be  not  a  mere 
glowing  fire,  emitting  heat  without  light,  but  a 
radiant  thing  that  illumines  even  while  it  imparts 
vital  warmth.    It  is  said  that  women  are  interested 
in  persons  and  not  in  abstract  ideas  or  general 
principles.    This  may  be  true,  at  present,  but  if 
so  it  is  a  tendency  to  be  corrected;  women  need 
toapprehendjgeneraj_situations  and  principles-if 
thejL-aj-e  to  exercise_the  sc<;ializjn^JiincUojQ_thaL 
has  been  described.    They^need  to  have  a  large 
outlookon  society.   They  need  to  be  well  grounded 
in  the  general  principles  of  economics,  of  social 
science,  of  history,  besides  receiving  at  least  a 
general  training  in  the  physical  jcjejices,  and  in 
literatures-psychology  and^ the  like.    The  largest 
foundation  in  culture  is  indispensable  to  a  woman 
who  would  be  not  only  a  sunny  presence,  but  a 
central,  solar  influence^m^her_environment. 
It  has  been  said  that  woman  is,  as  a  rule, 
[84] 


THE      IDEAL      OF      MARRIAGE 

incapable  of  taking  into  account  more  than  a  few 
persons;  that  >hc  is  disposed  .  ly  to  narrow 

I lu*  circle  within  which  she  lives  and  moves,  and, 
in  connection  with  this  trait,  that  she  is  a  born 
conservative,  opposed  to  innovation  of  any  kind, 
in  religion,  in  manners,  customs,  etc.  For  all  that 
is  finest  and  most  genuinely  womanly  in  her  craves 
for  harmonious  relations,  and  innovation  of  any 
kind  threatens  to  break  up  the  harmonies  of  life. 
If  this  be  so,  it  follows  that  she  needs  to  be  sub- 
jected to  the  reaction  upon  her  of  the  more  ad- 
venturous and  aggressive  spirit  of  man,  who  at 
his  best  seeks  ever  to  encounter  or  create  the  new, 
in  order  that  she,  in  turn,  may  be  impelled  to 
open  out  the  circle  of  her  interests  more  largely, 
to  enrich  and  diversify  the  elements  which  she 
undertakes  to  compose  and  reconcile. 

I  have  thus  far  spoken  of  the  woman  in  relation 
to  the  calling  of  the  man.  Is  she  then  to  be  a 
mere  onlooker,  a  mere  critic?  If  she  were  that,  a 
critic  in  the  sense  in  which  poetry  is  said  to  be  a 
criticism  of  life,  her  ministry  would  surely  not  de- 
serve to  be  disparaged  in  comparison  with  those 
who  are  engaged  in  the  actual  struggle  of  life!  It 
[85] 


MARRIAGE      AND      DIVORCE 

is  a  curious  provincialism  to  imagine  that  only  he 
is  a  doer  who  brings  things  to  pass  in  palpable 
fashion,  as  if  the  bricklayer  or  mason  were  a  more 
real  doer  than  the  architect  who  creates  the  de- 
sign. If  woman  were  simply  the  critic,  her  office 
would  be  not  negligible,  but,  on  the  contrary, 
sublime.  She  would  rank  with  the  poet,  only  that 
in  virtue  of  her  keen  interest  in  the  man  and  the 
child,  she  would  be  sketching  the  ideal  of  par- 
ticular lives,  she  would  be  writing  the  poetry  of 
particular  persons. 

But  indeed  she  also  takes  an  active  part,  she 
also  has  a  definite  calling — always  has  had,  and 
always  will  have.  I  have  said  that  every  relation 
in  life  should  be  educative;  it  should  be  added 
that  there  are  a  great  many  different  kinds  of 
educators.  There  is  the  school  teacher,  the  pro- 
fessor hi  the  college,  the  lecturer,  the  teacher  of 
music.  All  of  these  have  to  do  with  the  training 
of  some  one  faculty,  or  set  of  faculties.  Even  in 
the  school,  though  we  aim  to  train  the  whole  child, 
we  never  can  arrive  at  doing  so  without  the  co- 
operation of  the  home;  if  only  for  the  reason  that 
the  whole  child  is  not  in  evidence  in  the  school, 
186] 


THE     IDEAL     OF     MARRIAGE 

only  a  part  of  the  day  being  set  aside  for  school 
experience,  and  only  a  part  of  the  child's  lift-  being 
uncovered  to  the  eyes  of  the  teacher.  Itjs^the 
privilege  of  the  woman,  the  mothciyto  be  the  one 
aJl^rouncTcTIucal < » r  of  the  next  «:« •iieration.  The 
whole  child  in  infancy  is  in  her  charge,  and  later 
it  is  for  her  to  select  the  right  school,  to  see  to  it 
that  her  individual  child  is  not  sacrificed  to  the 
exigencies  of  the  school  mechanism,  that  the  life 
outside  the  school  and  in  the  school  are  made  con- 
cordant. She  is  to  see  to  it  that  all  the  rays  of 
influence  that  reach  the  child  shall  converge  upon 
a  single  purpose,  the  awakening  of  the  soul,  the 
development  of  a  distinctive  and  worthy  person- 
ality in  the  child. 

And  later  on  this  spiritual  office  still  remains 
hers.  Childhood  passes  into  adolescence,  the 
years  of  adolescence  also  pass — how  quickly!  and 
presently  there  is  a  family  of  adults,  and  with 
each  new  stage  of  development  new  mental  and 
moral  problems  arise  among  the  constituents  of 
the  family :  the  problems  of  adolescence,  the  prob- 
lems of  early  manhood  and  womanhood.  New 
discords  break  through  also;  possibly  there  ap- 
[87] 


MARRIAGE     AND      DIVORCE 

pear  strains  of  heredity  latent  before.  In  any 
case,  the  characteristic  service  of  the  woman  is 
still,  and  more  than  ever,  in  demand.  Her  func- 
tion does  not  cease  with  child-rearing,  when  so- 
called  education  is  finished,  so  that  she  were  then 
at  liberty  to  give  her  entire  attention  to  politics 
and  the  clubs.  She  is  still  needed  as  a  solar  in- 
fluence in  the  home.  Her  special  office  is  still  that 
of  using  insight,  and  supreme  interest  in  the  actual 
personalities  encircling  her,  to  totalize  the  lives 
subject  to  her  sway,  to  resolve  the  discords,  nay, 
to  utilize  them  as  great  composers  do,  in  order  by 
the  deft  management  of  contrasts  to  create  a 
nobler  music. 

I  do  not  ignore  the  essential  participation  of  the 
father.  Both  parents  jointly  are  responsible  and 
effectual,  but  in  respect  to  that  unity  of  life  of 
which  I  have  been  speaking  the  part  of  the  woman 
seems  to  me  predominant. 

There  is  one  other  point  touching  the  relation 
of  husband  and  wife  that  I  should  like  to  add. 
Mjimage^jvhejL-iigh^ 

view  of  itsjpurpose^  becomes  a  schc^j)f  jnjoral 
optimism^! '.  '.The  shadows  fall  on  the  way  of  life; 
[88] 


THE      IDEAL      OF      MARRIAGE 

the  fogs  rise;  the  clouds  thicken.  Adversity  sud- 
denly approaches,  and  offers  herself  as  a  com- 
panion on  the  road.  Bereavement,  perchance, 
takes  away  the  flower  of  the  flock;  or,  worse  >t  ill, 
there  is  a  so-called  black  sheep  in  the  family,  and 
the  hopes  that  were  staked  on  a  young  life  are 
miserably  defeated.  Then  by  all  the  deep  affec- 
tion we  bear  to  one  another  are  we  impelled  to 
console  and  uplift,  to  seek  to  see  the  silver  lining 
of  the  cloud,  that  we  may  show  it  to  our  comrade. 
And  as  only  the  truth  will  answer,  we  are  con- 
strained to  rise  to  such  spiritual  heights  as  to 
dispel  the  mists  that  impede  our  own  vision,  in 
order  that  we  may  actually  see  the  silver  lining, 
the  light  beyond  the  darkness — anoUoJhespiritual 
eye  there  is  always  a_light  beyond  the  darkness^ 
And  thus  marriage  becomes  a  means  of  most  ex-  I 
alted  spiritual  enlargement,  an  incentive  to  sane 
and  sound  optimism,  to  the  end  that  we  may  infuse 
the  strain  of  optimism  into  the  depression  at  our 
side  which  we  cannot  bear  to  witness,  and  lift  the 
cloud  that  has  settled  on  one  beloved  head. 

I  have  drawn,  as  I  conceive  it,  the  ideal  of 
marriage.    I  have  not  described  actual  conditions, 
[89] 


MARRIAGE      AND      DIVORCE 

for  the  ideal  is  never  the  actual;  it  is  the  operative 
force  that  transforms  and  transfigures;  it  is  that 
to  which  we  may  hope  to  approximate.  But  it 
must  also  be  in  line  with  the  actual.  And  already 
mankind  has  taken  notable  steps  in  the  direction 
indicated.  If  we  remember  the  low  estate  from 
which  the  institution  of  the  family  has  arisen,  the 
polygamies,  the  polyandries,  the  chaos  of  the  sex 
relations  which  prevailed  in  the  beginning,  we  see 
that  the  human  race  has  traveled  a  not  inconsider- 
able distance  on  the  road.  The  home  has  been 
won.  Let  it  not  be  imperiled.  Sacrifice  on  the 
part  of  parents  for  children  is  the  rule,  not  the 
exception.  Obedience,  reverence,  self-control,  as 
engendered  in  the  better  homes,  are  the  founda- 
tions of  all  that  is  sound  in  the  life  of  society;  and 
the  kindness  of  women  to  men,  the  appeal  to  all 
the  generosities  of  man's  nature,  coming  from  the 
defenceless  values  that  lie  in  woman's  nature — 
these  are  the  redeeming,  the  transfiguring  influ- 
ences of  humanity  to  which  we  must  still  and 
forever  trust.  Love  must  become  more  enlight- 
ened, more  charged  with  mentality,  and  expanded 
in  its  reach,  but  it  must  still  remain  essentially 
[90] 


THE      IDEAL      OF      MARRIAGE 

what  it  is,  as  practiced  by  the  humblest  woman   \ 
of  the  tenements  or  the  loneliest  wife  of  a  pioneer/ 
at  the  frontiers  of  civilization — the  wellspriug  of 
social  renewal! 


\9l] 


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